William Harvey- Father of the Circulatory System

William Harvey was the first to discover the location of blood flow in the human body.

He saw that when arteries and veins work together, they create a complete circuit. The heart is located in the middle of the circuit, which begins and finishes with it.

Blood circulates throughout the body as a result of the heart’s regular contractions.

In this article, we’ll look at William Harvey, the father of the circulatory system, as well as facts about William Harvey and the William Harvey theories.

Years of Formative Experience

William Harvey was born in the English town of Folkstone on April 1, 1578. His father, Thomas Harvey, was a wealthy businessman who ascended to the mayor of Folkstone. His mother, Joane Hawke, was the mother of nine children, the oldest of whom was William. When William Harvey was eight years old, he went to Canterbury’s elite King’s Grammar School after attending a humble primary school in Folkstone. He stayed at his uncle’s house throughout his time at King’s Grammar School and spent much of his school time studying the classics – Latin was essential for academic and legal work across Europe.

A Student of Medicine

Cambridge

Harvey enrolled as a medical student at the University of Cambridge when he was 15 years old after receiving a six-year scholarship to cover his living expenses and tuition fees. He spent the following two years of his fellowship studying science and medicine at different institutions in France, Germany, and Italy.

Padua

He began his studies at the University of Padua in Italy, which was known for its medical and anatomical research when he was 21 years old. (It’s worth noting that when Harvey came to Padua, Galileo Galilei had already taught mathematics, physics, and astronomy for seven years.)

Harvey’s instructor at Padua University, Hieronymus Fabricius, a gifted anatomist and surgeon, had a significant influence on him. When Harvey discovered that dissection was a useful way to learn more about human anatomy, he and Fabricius became friends.

Fabricius discovered valves in human veins in 1574, but it wasn’t until 1603 that he published his findings.

Harvey received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Padua in 1602. His professors drew on his diploma.

Shakespeare’s era

In terms of historical context, William Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, which most critics viewed as his finest work, when Harvey was studying in Padua.

Contributions of William Harvey

• In 1602 Harvey returned to England. The University of Cambridge offered him a Doctor of Medicine degree in addition to the degree he had already earned at Padua, which he accepted. After that, he moved on to practice medicine in London.
• He became a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1607 and was named Head Physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1608.
• Harvey became the Lumleian Lecturer of the College of Physicians, specialising in surgery, at the age of 37. He continued to work at St Bartholomew’s Hospital while also providing an annual series of lectures in this role.
• Harvey had established himself as London’s best physician by the age of 40, and he was selected as King James’ physician in 1618.
• In 1632, at the age of 54, he was appointed as King Charles’ physician.
• Circulation is the movement of blood from one part of the body to another.
• Harvey’s findings stemmed from his disdain for traditional medical textbook knowledge, preferring instead to create his own observations and conclusions when dissecting animals.
• Surprisingly, little has changed in western medical knowledge of blood and circulation since Galen wrote his medical textbooks in Rome 1400 years ago.
• Harvey presented his masterwork, De Moto Cordis – the Motion of the Heart when he was 50 years old. Anatomical Studies on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals is the complete title in English.
• Harvey was the first to correctly explain the movement of the heart and blood circulation throughout the body in De Moto.
• Harvey achieved his breakthrough after cutting up the veins and arteries of live animals and observing blood flow through them. Although his live dissections seem gruesome now, anaesthetics were unavailable in Harvey’s day. Regardless, this method taught us about blood and how it flows throughout the body.
• Harvey was finally able to put an end to some of Galen’s many years of folly. Galen, on the other extreme, did not make every mistake. His speeches were some of the most motivational I’ve ever heard. Galen had to flee Rome at one time because his tactics jeopardised the careers of Rome’s quack doctors.
• While fixing Galen’s blood and circulation faults, Harvey ran into problems with Europe’s current generation of quack doctors, who were relying heavily on Galen’s poor bloodletting therapies. Harvey’s medical practice suffered as a result of the barrage of criticism he received from specialists, despite the fact that he was not forced to flee for his own safety.
• Galen’s bloodletting, which was still practised 200 years after Harvey’s death, definitely cut short Ada Lovelace’s life.
• Despite the storms he had caused, most prominent anatomists at the time acknowledged that Harvey’s results were correct.
• Harvey secretly gave money to help the College of Physicians build a new library in 1651 when he was 73 years old. When the donor’s identity was confirmed, the College dedicated a monument to Harvey.

Key Findings in Harvey’s Blood Circulation

For the first time, Harvey found that the arteries and veins pump blood throughout the whole body, and so he’s also known as the father of the circulatory system. He discovered that the pulse of the heart keeps blood flowing at a steady rate throughout the body. He disproved long-held beliefs about how the heart and blood system worked, discovering that:

• Rather than coming from different parts of the body, the blood in the arteries and veins comes from the same place.
• Blood that goes through the arteries and into the tissues is not consumed.
• The circulation system is designed to transfer liquids rather than air. Although the blood on the right side is conveying air, it is still blood.
• Blood circulation is controlled by the heart, not the liver.
• The heart contracts at the same time it perceives a pulse.
• Blood is pumped into the aorta and pulmonary artery by the ventricles.
• The pulse is created by blood being forced into the arteries by the heart, expanding them rather than blood being sucked in by the arteries.
• Because the septum of the heart lacks arteries, all of the blood in the right ventricle travels to the lungs, then to the left ventricle through the pulmonary veins.
• Rather than flowing back and forth in the veins, blood goes continuously to the heart.

Conclusion

Harvey experienced gout, kidney stones, insomnia, and other health problems later in life. Evan Harvey’s final work, Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (Exercises on the Generation of Animals), was completed in 1661 before he wrote his epitaph. It is possible that Evan Harvey attempted suicide at this time. When Harvey was writing the piece, he sipped Laudanum, which is a tincture of opium that is alcoholic. The attempt, however, did not work. A stroke claimed his life on June 3, 1657, when he was 79 years old.