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William Harvey Biography

(1578 - 1657)

(born April 1, 1578, Folkestone, Kent, Eng.—died June 3, 1657, London) English physician. He studied at Cambridge University and later at the University of Padua, then considered the best medical school in Europe. After receiving a medical diploma, he was appointed to St. Bartholemew's Hospital (1609). He became one of James I's physicians 1618 and continued as a king's physician for Charles I, whose personal friend he became. Harvey's elucidation of blood circulation overturned the work of Galen and advanced that of Andreas Vesalius and Hieronymus Fabricius. To reach his conclusions, Harvey depended on his own observations and reasoning, numerous animal dissections, autopsies, and clinical observations. His Anatomical Exercise Concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (1628) recorded his findings. It clarified the function of heart valves, proved that blood did not pass through the septum in the heart, explained the purpose of valves in the veins and of the pulmonary circulation, showed that blood is pumped from the atria into the ventricles and then into the rest of the circulatory system, and proved that the pulse reflected heart contractions.