Home > William Harvey

Born in FolkestoneFolkestone is a coastal resort town in the Shepway district of Kent, England. Hovercraft and ferry services formerly connected the town to both Boulogne and Calais in France, together with the still present Channel Tunnel. Satellite towns include Capel-Le, EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England, Harvey studied at Gonville and Caius College, CambridgeGonville and Caius College, Cambridge generally known as "Caius" (though pronounced "Keys") is a constituent college of Cambridge University. Most of the stone used to build the college came from Ramsey Abbey near Ramsey, Cambridgeshire. The college was f, receiving a BA in 1597Events January 24 Battle of Turnhout. Maurice of Nassau defeats a Spanish force under Jean de Rie of Varas in the Netherlands The first opera is considered to have been written. Bali discovered by the Dutch explorer Cornelis Houtman Births Pieter Saenreda, and then he studied medicine at the prestigious University of Paduatempera, Two Christians before the Judges hangs in the city's cathedral. The city of Padua (Lat. Patavium It. Padova is the economic and communications hub of the Veneto region in northern Italy. The capital of Padova province, it stands on the Bacchiglio under FabriciusHieronymus Fabricius is the Latin name by which the Italian anatomist Girolamo Fabrici ( 1537- 1619) is better known. Fabrici was born in Acquapendente and studied at Padua under Gabriele Falloppio, whom he succeeded as professor of anatomy. One of his pu, graduating in 1602For the Marvel comic, see 1602 (comic). Events February 14 William Shakespeare First performance of Twelfth Night on Candlemas March 20 The Dutch East India Company is established as The United East India Company by the Dutch States-General May 15 Bartolo. He returned to England and married Elizabeth Brown, daughter of the court physician to Elizabeth IElizabeth I ( September 7, 1533 March 24, 1603) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from November 17, 1558 until her death. Sometimes referred to as The Virgin Queen or Good Queen Bess Elizabeth I was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty,. He became a doctor at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London (1609-43) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

He announced his discovery of the circulatory system in 1616 and in 1628 published his work Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals), where, based on scientific methodology, he argued for the idea that blood was pumped around the body by the heart before returning to the heart and being recirculated in a closed system.

This clashed with the accepted model going back to Galen, which identified venous (dark red) and arterial (brighter and thinner) blood, each with distinct and separate functions. Venous blood was thought to originate in the liver and arterial blood in the heart; the blood flowed from those organs to all parts of the body where it was consumed. It was for exactly these reasons that the work of the "heathen" Ibn Nafis had been ignored.

Harvey's ideas were not accepted during his life-time. His work was attacked, notably by Jean Riolan in Opuscula anatomica ( 1649) which forced Harvey to defend himself in Exercitatio anatomica de circulatione sanguinis (also 1649) where he argued that Riolan's position was contrary to all observational evidence. Harvey was still regarded as an excellent doctor, he was personal physician to James I (1618-25) and Charles I (1625-47) and the Lumleian lecturer to the Royal College of Physicians (1615-56). Marcello Malpighi later proved that Harvey's ideas on anatomical structure were correct; Harvey had been unable to distinguish the capillary network and so could only theorize on how the transfer of blood from artery to vein occurred.

Even so, Harvey's work had little effect on general medical practice at the time — blood letting, an idea based on the incorrect theories of Galen, continued to be a popular practice. Harvey's work did much to encourage others to investigate the questions raised by his research, and to revive the Muslim tradition of scientific medicine expressed by Nafis, Ibn Sina and of course Rhazes.

Harvey also wrote De Generatione ( 1651), a Aristotelian exposition on mammalian generation.