William Harvey
Overview
William Harvey was an English physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 who was the first person to describe completely and in detail the systemic circulation
Systemic circulation
Systemic circulation is the part of the cardiovascular system which carries oxygenated blood away from the heart to the body, and returns deoxygenated blood back to the heart. This physiologic theory of circulation was first described by William Harvey...

 and properties of blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....

 being pumped to the body by the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

. After his death "The William Harvey Hospital" was constructed in the town of Ashford, several miles from his birthplace of Folkestone.
Harvey's father Thomas Harvey, was a jurat
Jurat
Jurat is the name given to the clause at the foot of an affidavit showing when, where, and before whom the actual oath was sworn or affirmation was made....

 of Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...

 where he served the office of mayor in 1600.
Quotations

The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends, from which all power proceeds.

'"Dedication to King Charles"

I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature.

"Dedication to Dr. Argent and Other Learned Physicians"

I avow myself the partisan of truth alone.

"Dedication to Dr. Argent and Other Learned Physicians" :De Generatione Animalium [On the Generation of Animals] (1651) File:SS-harvey.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Man comes into the world naked and unarmed, as if nature had destined him for a social creature, and ordained him to live under equitable laws and in peace...

As art is a habit with reference to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect to things to be known.

Introduction

I appeal to your own eyes as my witness and judge.

Introduction

 
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