Michael Servetus

Michael Servetus was a Spanish physician, theologian and humanist of the sixteenth century, known in Spanish as Miguel Servet and in French as Michel Servet. In medicine he is remembered as the first European to describe correctly the function of the pulmonary circulation, an account set out in his book Christianismi Restitutio, published in 1553. He studied and wrote on anatomy, pharmacology, geography, mathematics and the Bible in its original languages, and he worked as a scholar and physician in France. His rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity brought condemnation from Catholic authorities, and he was burned at the stake for heresy in Calvin's Geneva in 1553.