William Harvey

ENGLISH PHYSICIAN

WRITTEN BY: 

• Andrew Gregory

LAST UPDATED: 3-25-2018 See Article History from E.B.

William Harvey, (born April 1, 1578, Folkestone, Kent, Eng.—died June 3, 1657, London), English physician who was the first to recognize the full circulation of the blood in the human body and to provide experiments and arguments to support this idea.

Education And Appointment As Lumleian Lecturer

Harvey had seven brothers and two sisters, and his father, Thomas Harvey, was a farmer and landowner. Harvey attended the King’s School in Canterbury, Kent, from 1588 to 1593 and went on to study arts and medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1593 to 1599. He continued his studies at the University of Padua, the leading European medical school at the time. He became a student of Italian anatomist and surgeon Hieronymous Fabricius, who had a considerable influence on Harvey. It is also likely that Harvey was taught by Italian philosopher Cesare Cremonini, a prominent follower of Aristotle./.../