William Harvey
was an English physician who was the first to describe accurately how blood was
pumped around the body by the heart. His other important study of the
development of the chick in the egg became the foundation of the new science of
embryology.
William Harvey was born in Folk Stone, Kent on 1 April 1578.
His father was a merchant. Harvey was educated at King’s College, Canterbury and
then at Cambridge University. He then studied at medicine at the University of Padua
in Italy, where the scientist and surgeon Hieronymus Fabricius tutored him.
On his return from Italy in 1602, Harvey established himself
as a physician. His marriage to Elizabeth helped his career. In 1607, he became
a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and, in 1609, was appointed
physician to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. In 1618, he became a physician to Queen Elizabeth’s
successor James I and to James’s son Charles when he became king. Both James
and Charles took a close interest in Harvey’s research and encouraged it.
Harvey’s research was furthered through the dissection of
animals. He first revealed his findings at the College of Physicians in 1616. In
1628 he published his theories in a book entitled ‘An Anatomical Study of the
Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals’. In this book, he explained how
the heart propels the blood in a circular course through the body. His discovery
was received with great interest.
Thomas Wright, another famous scientist, says that the discovery
of the circulation of blood was arguably as great as Darwin’s theory of
evolution and Newton’s theory of gravity.
Harvey’s other important contribution to medicine was in the
field of embryology. He was one of the first to study the development of the
chick in the egg and performed many dissections of mammal embryos at various
stages of formation.
From these experiments, Harvey was able to formulate the first
new theory of generation since antiquity.
It emphasizes the primacy of the egg, even in mammals. His findings
became the foundation of the new science of embryology.
Tags
Zoology