V 



WILLIAM HARVEY 



1578-1657 



In 1615 William Harvey stated his theory of the circulation of the 

 blood, which he derived from patient oh s elevations, in his lectures on 

 anatomy. The theory was epoch-making in the history of physiology 

 because it initiated the study of the chemical constituency of the 

 blood and of its function in nutrition. 



Harvey, born April i, 1578, in the south of England, attended the 

 University of Cambridge, and took his degree in 1597. The follow- 

 ing four years he studied at Padua under Fabricius. In 1602, when 

 he returned to England, he began the practice of medicine, and in 

 i6op became connected with St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He pub- 

 lished his ''Excercitatio'' in 1628, served for several years as physi- 

 cian to Charles I, and retired in 1646 to private life. He died lune 



3> 1^57- 



He described the process of his discovery as follows: "I fre- 

 quently and seriously bethought me, and long revolved in my mind, 

 what might be the quantity of blood which was transmitted, in how 

 short a time its passage might be effected, and the like; and not find- 

 ing it possible that this could be supplied by the juices of the ingested 

 aliment without the veins on the one hand being drained, and the 

 arteries on the other hand becoming ruptured through the excessive 

 charge of blood, unless the blood should somehow find its way from 

 the arteries into the veins, and so return to the right side of the heart; 

 I began to think whether there might not be a motion, as it were, in 

 a circle. Now this I afterwards found to be true; and I finally saw 

 that the blood, forced by the action of the left ventricle into the 

 arteries, was distributed to the body at large, and its several parts, 

 in the same manner as it is sent through the lungs, impelled by the 

 right ventricle into the pulmonary artery, and that it then passed 

 through the veins and along the vena cava, and so round to the left 



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