His own activity of mind caused him to settle at Oxford, where he
taught anatomy and chemistry, which he had been studying abroad. He
had read with Hobbes the writings of Vesalius, the great founder of
modern practical anatomy. In 1649 William Petty graduated at Oxford
as Doctor of Medicine, obtained a fellowship at Brasenose, and
practised. In 1650 he surprised the public by restoring the action
of the lungs in a woman who had been hanged for infanticide, and so
restoring her to life.
Dr. Petty now took his place at Oxford among the energetic men of
science who had been inspired by the teaching of Francis Bacon to
seek knowledge by direct experiment, and to value knowledge above
all things for its power of advancing the welfare of man. The
headquarters of these workers were at Oxford, and in London at
Gresham College.
In 1650 Petty was made Professor of Anatomy at Oxford, and it is a
characteristic illustration of his great activity of mind that he
was at the same time Professor of Music at Gresham College. Music
had then a high place in the Seven Sciences, as that use of
regulated numbers which expressed the harmonies of the created
world. The Seven Sciences were divided into three of the Trivium,
and four of the Quadrivium. The three of the Trivium concerned the
use of speech; they were Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic. The four of
the Quadrivium concerned number and measure; they were Arithmetic,
Geometry, Music; and Astronomy, which led up straight to God.
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