William Harvey

Author Code: EWHX

Harvey was educated at King's School, Canterbury and Caius Gonvil College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1597. His interest in medicine led him to continue his training at the University of Padua, graduating in 1602 and subsequently that year, becoming a Doctor of Medicine at Cambridge. He practised medicine in London, became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1607 and, in 1609, assistant physician at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, becoming physician the following year. Among his many patients was King James I, who appointed Harvey physician extraordinary and established a long-term relationship between Harvey and the Royal family. In 1615, he became the Lumleian lecturer at the College of Physicians. In 1628, he published Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals), which was dedicated to Charles I and led to a close friendship and association with the king. He travelled extensively in Europe over the next few years, often attending the king. Present at the battle of Edgehill, Harvey fled to Oxford in 1642 with the retreating royalists, where he remained until the surrender in 1646. He returned to London and continued to lecture and experiment. In 1651, his Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (Anatomical Exercises on the Generation of Animals) was published and highly acclaimed.