William Harvey

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William Harvey

William Harvey made a significant contribution to the understanding of the circulation of the blood in the body.

William Harvey (1578-1657), English physician, discovered the circulation of blood and the role of the heart in its propulsion. Harvey was a doctor at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He was also the physician to James I and Charles I. Harvey studied in Italy at the University of Padua where he became interested in anatomy and in particular, the work of Vesalius.

In 1615 Harvey began to work on the idea that blood circulated around the body. By experimenting on live animals and dissecting the bodies of executed criminals, Harvey was able to prove that the heart was a pump which forced blood around the body through arteries. Veins then returned the blood to the heart where it was recycled. Harvey's work was helped by the discovery that veins contained valves. Harvey realised that these valves stopped the blood from travelling back the wrong way to the heart. Galen's theory (that the body made new blood as its supplies were used up) was proved wrong. In 1628, Harvey published details of his work in his book entitled 'An Anatomical Disquisition on the Movement of the Heart and Blood.'

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After his work was published, Harvey actually lost patients, as his ideas were considered eccentric. It was not until after his death that others became convinced that he was right. Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), an Italian physician, used better quality microscopes to prove that Harvey's ideas were correct.  

Marcello Malpighi was a seventeenth century Italian physiologist who directed his microscope toward biological investigations and became one of the greatest microscopists of all time. His first publication in 1661 announced his observations on the anatomy of the frog lung. While observing dissected lung tissue, Malpighi discovered a network of ...

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