William Harvey



William Harvey (1578-1657), a late 16th early 17th century English physician, gifted humanity with one of the most important contributions to the progress of medical science. In part by introducing quantitative methods into anatomical and physiological investigations, Harvey discovered that the heart pumps blood through the body, and does so via a system of vessels such that the blood moves in a circular path, from the heart through the arteries and back to the heart through the veins. Publishing those findings in his 1628 book, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (Anatomical Exercises on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals), usually referred to as De Motu Cordis, Harvey made the following contributions in the history of medical science:



In his dissections of humans and animals, Harvey could not see vessels connecting the arteries to the veins, since, as it turns out, their minute size lies below the limits of visual acuity, and no microscopes yet existed to view them. Harvey could only infer that a connecting pathway existed. In 1661, a few years after Harvey died, the Italian biologist, Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), using an early microscope, discovered capillaries, tiny blood vessels not visible to the naked eye, connecting arteries to veins. A coincidence seemingly fitting, Malpighi had entered the world the same year Harvey published De Motu Cordis.

Among them, Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), William Harvey (1578-1657), and Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), in works published in little more than a century, from 1543 to 1661, demonstrated central truths of human anatomy and physiology that had escaped Western medicine for more than a millenium following the erroneous teachings of Galen (130-216 C.E.). It required three investigators to break the stranglehold of one.

Brief sketch of Williams Harvey’s life
Born in 1578 (April 1, at Folkstone, on the east coast of Kent, England), the eldest of seven brothers (a "week of brothers" and a "brace of sisters"), William Harvey entered the world shortly after Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) had died, though Vesalius's reputation, based on his remarkably detailed and elegantly drawn illustrations revolutionizing the understanding of human anatomy, had not. William Harvey had giant shoulders to stand on, and ultimately he saw further.

Harvey received his early education in the classics, in Canterbury, at King's School, there "....admonished to speak Greek or Latin even on the playground."  Harvey's father, a landowner and successful merchant, could afford to send Harvey to the University of Cambridge (specifically, Gonville and Caius College), which he entered at age 16 years (1593 CE) and received his B.A. at age 19 years (1597 CE). Harvey developed an interest in medicine and decided to go Italy, one of the major centers of intellectual activity in Europe at the time. He enrolled in the then renown University of Padua, studying medicine under Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, a noted anatomist in the Vesalian tradition, who had discovered the valves in the veins, a discovery which later contributed to Harvey's thinking that led to his discovery of the blood circulatory system. Harvey's earlier education in the classics helped ease his learning at Padua, as lecturers spoke in Latin. Harvey received his Doctor of Medicine degree in April, 1602, at age 24 years.

After Padua, Harvey returned to England and developed a practice in medicine, married, and became a Fellow of the College of Physicians in London. He also secured a position as physician at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, one of London’s great hospitals, and there and in his private practice distinguished himself as a physician. In 1615, at age 37 years, the College of Physicians elected him their Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, and gave him the honor of the Lumleian Lectureship, a lifetime remunerated position, in which he lectured on human anatomy, physiology and surgery, including performing demonstration dissections on human corpses, officially twice per week, from 1616 to 1656, the year before he died. The lecturership gave Harvey a great opportunity to organize his thinking and guide his research. His lecture notes survive as Lectures on the Whole of Anatomy as a manuscript in the British Library and in English translation.

In 1618 he became physician extraordinary to the king (James I), and ministered to many eminent aristocrats, including Francis Bacon, for whom he had little regard as an intellectual. After Charles I succeeded the throne, in 1625, Harvey became Charles' physician, benefitting from the King’s patronage to pursue his medical investigations. When civil strife engulfed England, Harvey, now in his 60s retired to live with a brother, pursuing his experiments until he died in 1657, having lived nearly to the age of 80 years.

De Motu Cordis
To read the full-text of De Motu Cordis in English translation, click on the "Works" tab in the banner at the beginning of this page. Equivalently, click De Motus Cordis, which brings you to same subpage of this article. A few revelatory quotes from the work:

holding code: Of course, we now know that the richer 'spirit' in arterial blood is oxygen. Before the discovery of oxygen, the alchemists of the seventeenth century recognized that air contained an essential ingredient, an 'elixir of life' &mdash; a kind of 'spirit'. We also know today that venous blood, too, has its richer 'spirit', carbon dioxide (as bicarbonate).

De Generatione Animalium
Harvey received less repute for his other great work, De Generatione Animalium &mdash; On the Generation of Animals &mdash; a contribution to embryology....