Contains (pp. 168-73) the first printed description of the lesser circulation. Because of the heretical nature of this book on the reform of Christianity, it was printed secretly and anonymously at Vienne, France. Copies had circulated in manuscript as early as 1546.

As a punishment for heresy, Servetus, a physician, was burnt at the stake at Champel, Geneva, by order of Calvin, soon after publication. Virtually the entire edition of 1000 copies was burned with him. Only three copies survive: Richard Mead’s copy in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, a copy in the Imperial Library, Vienna, and a copy lacking the title page and the first 16pp., said to be Calvin’s personal copy, at Edinburgh University Library.

Servetus's passage on the lesser circulation was first reprinted by William Wotton in Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (1694), pp. 211-12. Wotton provided the Latin text on pp. 230-31 of the second edition of Reflexions.... (1697), and in an added "Postscript" that prefixed the second edition he provided the first English translation on pp. xxvi-xxxii. Interestingly, Wotton printed Servetus's text from a transcription provided to him by Charles Bernard; neither Wotton nor Bernard were able to view a copy of the actual book from which it had been copied.

Servetus's complete work was reprinted in type facsimile in 1790 at Nuremberg. Servetus’s passages describing the pulmonary circulation are also translated in J. F. Fulton’s Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd ed., 1966, pp. 44-45. See Fulton & Stanton, Michael Servetus, humanist and martyr. With a bibliography of his works, New York: Reichner, 1953.

Digital facsimile of the 1694 edition of Wotton from the Internet Archive at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1697 edition of Wotton at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1790 facsimile from Google Books at this link.