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William Harvey

WILLIAM HARVEY

1578 - 1657

The famous English physician who discovered the blood circulation and the functioning of the heart was born in 1578 in Folkestone, England. He published his most famous book, which is (An Anatomical Article on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals) in 2008. This book is truly the greatest book in the history of physiology, and it is, in fact, the starting point for modern physiology. The importance of this book is not only in its direct applications, but also in the comprehensive understanding it provides of how the human body works.

And for us, (we are in these days and we know that blood circulates, this fact has become self-evident), Harvey's theory seems completely clear, but what seems clear now was never so for ancient biologists, as some of them presented erroneous views as follows:

A - food turns into blood in the heart.
(b) The heart makes the blood hot.
C - Arteries are filled with air.
d- The heart makes (vital, gentle substance).
E - The blood in both arteries and veins is exposed to ebbs and flows, so sometimes it travels towards the heart and sometimes away from it.

Galen, the greatest physician of his time, did not think of the blood circulation process, and Aristotle did not mention anything about it either. Even after the publication of Harvey's book, many physicians remained reluctant to believe that blood circulates through the body through a closed system of blood vessels and with a constant pumping force under the influence of the heart.

Har spent about nine years doing experiments before reaching the circulation theory, which says that arteries carry blood away from the heart, while veins return blood to the heart, and since Harvey lacked a microscope, he could not confirm the existence of capillaries, which are tiny blood vessels. Which transports blood from very small arteries to veins. But he successfully deduced the existence of such microvessels. However, it was the Italian scientist (Malveges) who discovered the capillary vessels a few years after Harvey's death.

Harvey also stated that the work of the heart is to pump blood from the arteries, and he presented a large number of experimental examples with careful discussions to support his point of view, and although his theory had met resistance in its early days, Harvey lived to see that his theory had gained full acceptance by scientists Contemporaries.

Harvey wrote a book on the science of embryology in 1651, and this book is considered the beginning of the modern study of embryology, and Harvey was influenced by the first teacher, Aristotle, in this respect. Harvey mentioned that the final structure and composition of the embryo develops gradually.

Harvey's life was long, interesting and successful.
Among his patients were two kings of England: James | I and Charles I as well as the eminent philosopher Francis Bacon. Haar has been rejected at the President's Center of the London Medical College. He married but did not have children and died in 1657 in London at the age of seventy-nine.