Who was William Harvey?
Medical Scientist. Discoverer of the Circulation
of the Blood, and Investigation of the Formation of the Embryo.
Date and Place of Birth:
1st April 1578, Folkestone, Kent, England.
Family Background:
Son of a merchant who was Mayor of Folkestone
in 1600..
Education:
King's School, Canterbury. Caius College, Cambridge.
Padua University, Italy where he studied medicine.
Chronology/Biography of Sir WIlliam Harvey:
1597: Leaves Cambridge
University and travels through France and Germany on his way to
go to Italy.
1599: Harvey arrives
in Padua.
1602: Returned to
England from his medical studies at the University of Padua in Italy
where he was taught by Fabricius. Worked as a physician. Studied
medicine again at Cambridge.
1604: Joined the
Royal College of Physicians.
1607: Harvey became
a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
1609: Appointed physician
to St Bartholomew's Hospital. Lived in Ludgate at this period.
1613: Harvey was
elected as "Censor of the Royal College of Physicians".
1615: Appointed as
Lumleian Lecturer in August which meant he was commissioned to give
lectures for a period of seven years with the aim of "spreading
light" and increasing the general knowledge of anatomy throughout
the country.
1616: Harvey's research
was furthered through the dissection of animals. He first revealed
his findings at the College of Physicians in 1616. Began his series
of lectures.
1618: Harvey was
appointed "Physician Extraordinary" to King James the
First and his son Charles. He also treated aristocrats such as the
Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon. when he became
king.
1625: He was re-elected
for the second time as as "Censor of the College of Physicians".
1628: He published
his theories in a book entitled 'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis
et Sanguinis in Animalibus' ('An Anatomical Study of the Motion
of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals') in Frankfurt. in it he
explained how the heart propelled the blood around the body on a
continuous path with valves which only allowed a one way flow.Ever
since Galen before this blood was thought to have been continuously
made by the liver. This book was panned by some of the other physicians
at the time but he still managed to take on more patients.
1629: Harvey was
re-elected as 'Censor' of the College of Physicians.
1630: Accompanied
the Duke of Lennox on his journey through France and Spain during
the Mantuan War and its subsequent Plague.
1632: Returned to
England and accompanied King Charles the First wherever he went.
~On hunting trips he would collect dead deer for anatomical experiments.
1642: Harvey witnessed
the Battle of Edgehill in Warwickshire, the first major battle of
the English Civil War, where he tended the wounded. Appointed Doctore
of Physick to King Charles the First at Oxford.
1645: He was Warden
of Merton College, Oxford for a short time. At the surrender of
Oxford to the Parliamentarians he returned to London and lived in
the houses of his brothers Eliab and Daniel.
1651: "On the
Generation of Animals" showed that mammals reproduce from a
sperm and an egg.
Written Works:
- 1628: "Anatomical
Treatise on the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals".
- 1651:
"On the Generation of Animals".
Marriage:
1604: To Elizabeth Brown, Daughter of Lancelot
Browne, physician to Queen Elizabeth the first and King James the
first .
3rd June 1657, Roehampton, London, England in
the house of his brother Eliab of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Age at Death:
79.
Site of Grave:
St. Andrew’s Church, Hempstead, Essex, England.
He was placed in his own chapel with no coffin but surrounded by
lead next to his two nieces. On 18th October 1883, Harvey's remains
were re interred in a sarcophagus with some of his works and lined
with the leaden case at a ceremony performed by Fellows of the College
of Physicians.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
British Museum holds his notes.
OXFORDSHIRE:
Oxford.
