William Harvey

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William Harvey

William Harvey was the oldest of seven children. His being a boy as well as the oldest child gained him a good education. He was born in 1578 in England in a place called Kent during the reign of queen Elizabeth 1. He was a very talented student, first studying at Kings College in Canterbury and then went on to Cambridge University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1597 at the age of twenty. He decided to continue his schooling at the university of Padua, the best medical school of its time.

Padua was the best place for western and european medical instruction. William Harvey studied under the well known scientist and surgeon, Hieronymus Fabricius and it was under his tuition that Harvey got interested in anatomy. This was partly because Fabricius himself was a very ardent anatomist. He had figured out that the valves worked only one way in the veins, but could not figure out what their role was.

William Harvey then took the foundation of Fabricius's work and continued to try to solve the riddle of how the valves incorporated themselves into the circulation of blood throughout a human