ABSTRACT
Harvey is best known for the discovery of the circulation of the blood, which he published in his Anatomical Exercise on the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals (1628). This work is commonly cited as De motu cordis (On the Movement of the Heart), although it is the parallel phrase “movement of the blood” that alludes to the circulation proper. This theory became widely accepted among European physicians and scientists within a few decades. Shortly after its publication, René Descartes (1596-1650) co-opted the circulation into his influential new system of philosophy. In 1636 a colleague wrote to Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): “This is the circulation which the blood traverses within us. It has been observed in our time, and will suffice to revolutionize all of medicine, just as the invention of the telescope has done for astronomy, the compass has done for commerce, and artillery has done for the whole military art.”
