English physician, physician to King James I and King Charles I. In his 1628 treatise Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals), Harvey demonstrated through direct dissection and quantitative reasoning that blood circulates continuously through the body in a single system driven by the heart's pumping action, overturning the centuries-old Galenic doctrine that the liver continuously manufactures blood which the body then consumes. The finding met considerable resistance from physicians trained in Galenic physiology and took decades to become the accepted account. Harvey could not observe the capillary connections his theory required; Marcello Malpighi confirmed them under a microscope in 1661, four years after Harvey's death.
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Source A History of MedicineLois N. Magner
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. A History of Medicine
Lois N. Magner, CRC Press
2. William Harvey (Wikipedia)
Infobox, birth_date
1 April 1578
Infobox, death_date
1657-06-03
View the SourceFrequently Asked Questions
What did William Harvey discover about the circulation of blood?
He was the first known physician to describe pulmonary and systemic circulation completely and in detail, in De Motu Cordis (1628).
William Harvey was an English physician who made influential contributions to anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, pulmonary and systemic circulation, as well as the process of blood being pumped to the brain and the rest of the body by the heart. The article notes that earlier writers, such as Realdo Colombo, Michael Servetus and Jacques Dubois, had provided precursors to some of his theories. In 1628 he published his treatise on the circulation of the blood, De Motu Cordis, in Frankfurt.
How did William Harvey challenge Galen's view of the liver?
His estimates showed the liver would have to produce 498 pounds of blood a day, more than the weight of the body.
In the eighth chapter of De Motu Cordis, Harvey dealt with the quantity of blood passing through the heart from the veins to the arteries. This came into conflict with Galen's accepted view of the liver as the origin of venous blood. Harvey estimated the capacity of the heart, how much blood is expelled with each pump and how many times the heart beats in half an hour. From these estimates he realised that the liver would have to produce 498 pounds of blood in a day, more than the weight of the whole body.
What was William Harvey's stance on witchcraft?
He was a prominent sceptic, and his report led to four Lancashire women being acquitted in 1634.
Harvey was a prominent sceptic regarding allegations of witchcraft. He was one of the examiners of four women from Lancashire accused of witchcraft in 1634, and as a consequence of his report, all of them were acquitted. Earlier, in 1632, he was sent to investigate a woman accused of being a witch. He killed and dissected a toad she called her familiar, concluding that it was a perfectly ordinary animal and not supernatural in any way.
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