William Harvey

William Harvey

William Harvey was born on 1 April 1578 in Folkestone, Kent, England. was an English Physician. His schooling at the University of Padua, the foremost medical school of the time.

He received his medical degree in 1602. Between 1615 to 1656 Harvey worked as Luleian lecturer for the Royal College of Physicians. In 1615 Harvey began to work on his theory that blood circulated around the body.

He carefully studied the motion of the heart and blood in live animals. He proved that the heart was a pump which forced the blood around the body through arteries and that the blood was returned to the heart through the veins. In 1628 Harvey formally presented his findings in his publication - Anatomical Essay on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, in which he explained his methods and gave an accurate account of how the circulatory system functioned.

He died in London on June 3 1657