Harvey Project Researchers

• Persaud, T. V. N. "Early History of Human Anatomy: From Antiquity to the Beginning of the Modern Era." Springfield: Charles C Thomas Publisher, 1984.

William Harvey (1578 – 1657)

• Studied in Padua under Fabricius ab Aquapendente.

• Harvey’s modern methodology was not simply speculative or anatomical, but also experimental and quantitative (this is how Harvey differed from his predecessors).

• Harvey can also be considered modern for the way he isolated his phenomenon.

• He was interested only in the mechanical process of circulation and did not concern himself with what else happened to the blood in the heart, liver and brain.

• Harvey’s research did not accept the Galenic theory of ‘spirits’ in the organs.

• Harvey employed a mechanistic understanding of the body—a common sentiment in the seventeenth century. By chance or as a result of Harvey's own intent, he never attempted to apply the mechanistic approach to the body generally, a trap that many in the past had fallen into—Galen as a prime example.

• Ackerknecht warns us that it would be incorrect to view Harvey as a “full-fledged modern scientist.”

• Harvey was a classical enthusiast and a firm disciple of Aristotle, believing there to be a central organizing structure to the body; in his case, the heart. Ackerknecht also argues that what may have influenced Harvey's concept, "heart as king of the body," was his Royalism. Harvey was closely associated with the Royal family of Britian, and was the personal doctor of Charles I, remaining loyal to him throughout the English Revolution. It is possible, therefore, that his idea of the heart being the king, or central organizing agent of the body, are partly a result of his loyalty to the monarch and the belief that he is the center of British society.

• In many ways, Harvey’s research on the circulation of the blood did not mark a clean break with the past. Indeed, in many cases he would cite the work of Galen in order to justify his own experiments and observations.

• Harvey’s research was grounded in morphological arguments based on the dissection and vivisection of animals.

• For example, he recognized the structure of the valves found in the heart, the structure of vessels and the absence of pores in the septum.

• Harvey’s notions were also based on mathematical and quantitative discoveries. For instance, he measured the amount of blood that traveled through the heart at a particular time.

• The most significant gap in Harvey’s research, through no fault of his own, was the inability to show how blood circulated from the arteries into the veins.

• Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood received extremely hostile opposition.

• This demonstrates a conservative and authoritarian devotion to Galen.

• However, many accepted Harvey’s discovery, which led to two logical conclusions: the possibility of intravenous injection of medication and the possibility of blood transfusion.

• Galen was vocally against the laws that forbade human dissection.

• Served as a physician to the gladiators, which allowed him to observe/treat severe wounds.

• Galen was a keen experimenter and dissected both living and dead animals.

• He applied this understanding of the anatomical structure of animals to humans with mixed results (I.e. the motion of the blood and the origin and sustenance of life).

• His writings are authoritative and pompous.

• Galen operated under a teleological perspective. Therefore, all structures were created for a specific purpose (attractive, retentive, alterative, repulsive, or eliminative).

• Galen’s philosophy was well received by the Church, and his medical textbook served as the standard for over a thousand years.

• Galen’s references to the body’s life force as integrated with the ‘soul’ often took on the quality of biblical law.

• Galen believed that blood constantly flowed outward from the heart—analogous to water in an irrigation channel. Therefore, he suggested that the heart contained pores.

• Schematic Illustration Of Galen's Physiology (Mark Howes, Queen's University).jpg

• Galen’s physiological and pathological ideas dominated Europe until the early modern era.

• Scientific inquiry that challenged the Galenic method was often considered arrogant and faced constant prejudice.

• Historians have criticized Galenism for inhibiting the advancement of medical knowledge due to its rigid vitalistic reasoning, theory of blood flow and therapeutics.

• However, Duffin reminds us that the longevity of Galen’s ideas was manifested in existing attitudes and practices.

• We cannot blame Galen for his followers’ orthodox.

• The overthrow of Galen’s theory was a gradual process.

William Harvey (1578 – 1657)

• According to Duffin, Harvey’s discovery was no accident. Several anatomical and conceptual preconditions set the stage:

1. While studying at Padua, Harvey learned of the valves in the veins. Thus, he knew that blood in the veins flowed toward the heart.

2. Based on mathematical calculations, Harvey reasoned that if blood did not circulate, the liver would be forced to create 400 gallons of blood a day—this was way more than seemed possible from one’s
average daily food consumption.

3. Harvey was influenced by philosophical notions of cycles and the new mechanical pumps and fire engines in the society around him.

• Duffin suggests that Harvey’s arguments were grounded in anatomical observations and calculations. They were removed from ancient theorizing or supposition (But did they necessarily mark a clean
break from antiquity?).

• Harvey’s successors sought mechanistic explanations for the body (Ex. René Descartes, etc.).

• This book attempts to address three fundamental questions: How did Harvey make his great discovery of the circulation? What were its effects in his own and later times? What is his place in the long history of scientific progress?

Part One: Harvey the Man

• Of all the brilliant minds at the University of Padua, Fabricius of Aquapendente exerted the most profound influence on the outlook of young William Harvey.

• Without Fabricius, according to Keele, the whole pattern of Harvey’s life would have been different.

• With his mentor Fabricius, Harvey gave firm support to Aristotle’s philosophy on scientific questions.

• Throughout the duration of his career, Harvey remained a qualitative observer grounded in the Aristotelian tradition of Padua.

• Harvey remained a loyal royalist throughout his life. As he states: “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. The King in like manner is the foundation of his Kingdom, the sun of the world around him, the heart of the republic, the fountain whence all power, all grace, doth flow.”

Part Two: Harvey the Physician

• In Harvey’s era, the practice and theory of medicine were still dominated by Galen.

• Indeed, Harvey’s medical education at Padua had, almost certainly, been buttressed in Galenic terms (except anatomy, in which Vesalius had deposed Galen).

• Clinical procedure was not based on systematic examination, as we understand the term today—it was opportunist observation.

• There can be no doubt that Harvey based his methods of clinical observation on Galen’s example (whom he lauded as “the father of physicians”).

• However, Harvey did improve on Galenic clinical opportunism and developed a basis for the more rational approach to physical examination.

Part Three: Harvey the Scientist

• Harvey’s science was intensely personal.

• His scientific discoveries cannot be separated from his personality and his outlook on the world around him.

• It should be noted that not only was there an absence of science in Harvey’s English environment, there was active antagonism to its attitude.

• To pursue scientific inquiry was to invite the danger of being labeled a magician or accused of witchcraft.

• To be a scientist in Harvey’s time demanded physical as well as moral courage.

• Keele suggests that Harvey was a “reluctant revolutionary.”

• Harvey was devoted to the king and a firm advocate of the royalist cause. His literary appreciation for the Greek and Roman classics demonstrates classical continuity. His career as a physician shows him once more consistently orthodox in his ambitions.

• How did Harvey achieve his great discovery?

• It is an over-simplification to argue that Harvey’s discovery was derived from observation and experiment alone.

• Aristotle stressed the importance of the heart in the animal economy; he considered it the centre of all the mental and bodily processes of life, even to the exclusion of the brain.

• Galen was Harvey’s second great source of knowledge.

• Harvey took from Galen the groundwork on subjects such as anatomy, physiology and medicine.

• Finally, Harvey took from his mentor Fabricius the value of practical demonstration and Aristotelian methodology.

• Harvey denies the existence of any pores in the septum and concludes his review with the comment that the motion and function of the heart as described by Galen is obscure, inconsistent and even impossible.

• Harvey sees the heart as a muscle; when it contracts from all sides the arteries dilate; he notes too that if the ventricular wall is pierced during systole, blood spurts out; thus in the intact heart this is the movement that expels blood into the arteries, expanding them.

• Harvey’s favorite illustration of arterial pulsation is likened to “blowing into a glove and producing simultaneous distension of all its fingers” (this could serve as a relatively uncomplicated visual aid in our exhibit).

• The problem of the quantity of blood passing through the heart deeply engaged Harvey’s attention. It was here that he crossed the barrier of an epoch, between qualitative and quantitative biological science.

• According to Harvey, it was a consideration of the quantity of blood, which induced him to visualize a circulation of the blood.

• However, Harvey ran into a dilemma.

• Harvey had established that the heart worked as a pump, but he realized that if this were so and the movement of the blood were as Galen taught, this pump would quickly empty the veins and burst the arteries.

• He therefore had to question Galen’s further contention that blood was made in the liver from absorbed food and consumed in the tissues.

• Harvey concluded that the amount of blood passing through the heart cannot possibly be produced by the liver from the ingesta.

• Therefore the blood must circulate.

• Harvey’s three essential component parts of this circulation: the pulmonary circulation, the arterial route from the heart to the periphery and the venous route for its return.

• It is clear that informed medical opinion in Europe had great difficulty in accepting the consequences of Harvey’s new thesis. To do so meant that they had to abandon much of what they thought they had learned.

• Perhaps the most important of Harvey’s supporters was the philosopher Descartes.

• Keele concludes that Harvey is unique in that his claim to be an ancient philosopher is as strong as that of being a modern scientist.

• Harvey’s attitude to Galen is curious. He took the Galenic material that came down to him; he could not do otherwise since it comprised almost all the medicine of his day. But he flatly rejected the whole pattern of Galenic thought—the perfection of organs for their purpose, this purpose having been determined by Divine plan. This type of reasoning was never adopted by Harvey.

• For many centuries, the dogmatism of Galen was interlocked with the dogmatism of the Christian faith through which only heretics could break.

• There can be little doubt that Harvey must have derived the idea of a cardiac pump from some outside source. It would seem that this must have come from the technology of water-pumps (this could be another uncomplicated visual display in our exhibit).

Vogel is a biologist and he has experienced problems with his own circulatory system. He is a teacher and a writer distressed at how little people know about how science works, thus his book.

• The circulatory system moves material around within the animal. A carrier, blood, goes around and around, while other items make less monotonous repetitive circuits.
• Hormones are commonly blood borne, are nothing more than messages that regulate synchronize the activities of autonomous cells.
• Heat is transferred through blood movement. It is a byproduct of all or our metabolic chemistry and is eventually dumped off upon our surroundings.
• Heat is produced throughout a body but must be lost across a surface
• Heat needs transportation from core to periphery, or the core will become intolerably warm, and it is needed to heat appendages.
• The hydraulic force of a pressurized bloodstream is in pushing blood through the filtration stage of kidneys.
• The most demanding circulatory task is the transport of dissolved gases.
• Oxygen is carried from the lungs and carbon dioxide is returned to the lungs
• We release heat by combining stored fat and carbohydrate with oxygen

Simple Circuitry

• The circulatory system is 3-dimensional, and made of parts awkwardly diverse in size (if capillaries are 8 micrometers in diameter, then the heart would be 5 inches high and more than 3 inches wide to be illustrated on a realistic scale).

Vogel illustrates his ideas by comparing the circulatory system with a suburban home
• Heat is produced centrally and distributed as hot air or hot water to the various rooms
• The components are a set of pipes for transporting the hot air or water, and a pump
• Two different kinds of exchangers are needed
• In one heat is acquired-the furnace
• In the other heat is transferred to the living quarters
• Air is blown from the furnace to the periphery, and the air returns to the furnace of its own accord

A heart pumps blood, and it exchanges dissolved gases with the environment through a set of gills or sheet-like lungs, then it moves heartward again without the benefit of very specific piping. In the heartward oozing through the rest of the body, the second exchange takes place in which tissues are supplied with dissolved oxygen and dump their dissolved carbon dioxide.

The Human System

• The heart consists of 2 pumps and 3 main kinds of pipes
• Arteries have thick walls that withstand the full pressure generated by the squeeze of the heart
• The aorta is the largest, leading out to the body
• Capillaries are tiny pipes with very thin walls that are supplied with blood by the arteries
• Capillaries are the sites in which material is exchanged between blood and the tissues of the body
• Veins have thinner walls and much lower internal pressures than the arteries
• Each side of the heart consists of two pumping chambers serially arranged, an atrium sometimes called an “auricle” because it is ear-shaped and a ventricle. Thus, the heart has 4 chambers in all.
• Blood flows through the system, consisting of a watery liquid (plasma)
• Suspended in the blood are cells of various sizes and dissolved gases, salts, hormones, droplet of fat, energy-yielding molecules such as glucose, waste materials such as urea, and wide variety of proteins
• These materials enter and leave the blood as it passes through the capillaries of the various organs.

Pumps and Pipes

• Atria are muscular entrance chambers to the heart, not as massive and powerful as ventricles, but they pump blood at precisely the same rate.
  

• Pressure difference is what drives flow through circulatory systems. The heart provides the high pressure and the other end needs to be low (as in blood returning to the heart).
  

• The ventricle, which is a pump, gradually fills with blood, but it cannot expand, so the blood must be forced through the ventricle. The atria
  

• A muscle can only contract; if it surrounds a chamber its contraction can increase the internal pressure in the chamber, squeeze out some of the contents or both. Human hearts have supercharging auxiliary chambers, the atria which squeeze and drive blood into the ventricles. The ventricles then give discrete, simultaneous squeezes, and blood flows out into the arteries.
  

• The ventriclar chambers have automatically self-synchronizing valves. They open and shut in response to nothing fancier than the pressure changes caused by the chambers of the heart contracting.
  

• If one ventricle needs two valves, an input one and an output one, then two ventricles require four valves in all.
  

The pulmonary valve controls the exit from the right ventricle; the aortic valve does the same for the left ventricle. Between the right atrium and is ventricle stands the tricuspid (or right atrioventicular) valve; between the left atrium and ventricle is the mitral (or left atrioventricular) valve.

Looking at a Heart

• The heart is located within the pericardial cavity, and is free to slide around as the body moves and the heart beats.
  

• The whole organ is twisted, obliquely mounted in the body, mildly asymmetrical.
  

• The route through the heart is; blood flows forward into the atria, diagonally into the ventricles, and upward as it heads out to lungs or elsewhere. Into the right atrium, then to the right ventricle, and out to the lungs in the pulmonary circuit. In from the lungs to the left atrium, down into the left ventricle, and out the aorta to the rest of the body in the systemic circuit. Heart to heart, twice over.
  

• Coronary arteries are prone to suffer internal narrowing as fatty material gets deposited on their wall. The result is a reduced blood supply to the heart muscle.
  

• Four large pulmonary veins come in from the lungs (two from each) and separately enter the left atrium. Two even larger veins carry blood to the right atrium. The inferior vena cava “hollow vein”) from the lower part of the body and the superior vena cava from the upper part.
  

• A thick muscular wall separates the ventricles.
  

• Ventricles are smooth on the inside. The outside of the ventricle has folds and columns (trabeculae) of flexible and strong inextensible tissue.

Chapter 3 Getting There

• William Harvey (1578-1657) is accorded the discovery of the circulation of blood. The understanding of blood flow before Harvey was “most peculiar.” Galen, whose work was accepted before Harvey worked from dead material and basically got it wrong. Harvey wrote On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals,1628.
  

• Harvey's work is quantitative. He estimates the volume of the heart and the fraction that might be pumped into the aorta, multiplying the 2 gives him the volume pumped per beat. Multiplying the latter by the rate at which the heart beats gives the volume pumped per unit time—cardiac output.
  

• Secondly, he demonstrates that veins have valves that permit only heartward flow of blood.
  

• Harvey combined a thorough understanding of what his predecessors had found out with an impressive detachment from their conceptual schemes.

Making the Heart Beat: The Rest of the Story

• An entire heart isn't intrinsically active—only a few specific areas of the heart have the capacity for spontaneous muscle contraction. Acetylcholine and adrenalin are two substances that can slow or speed up the heart, exerting their effects through the nodal cells.
  

• Acetylcholine-a neurotransmitter in body tissues transferring substances between nerve cells
  

• Adrenalin is disseminated in the blood. It can be released from the central nervous system or produced by a gland the adrenal.

Chapter 4 Pressure

Pressure, Viscosity, and Flow in Pipes
blood needs a push or pull to flow through veins, friction supplies the sustained need for blood
no-slip condition refers to the condition that as fluid flows over a surface, an infinitely thin layer of fluid stays on the surface
it takes force to keep the blood flowing, so the heart must keep working
Measuring Pressures
the instrument for taking blood pressure is a sphygmomanometer
the inward press of the atmosphere squeezes an object until the outward pressure gets high enough for the two pressures are equal.
Pressure is exerted from the heart equally in all directions, without serious gravitational effect
our heads are normally further from the center of the earth than our hearts, so arterial pressure at the brain is lower.
The systolic pressure reflects the pressure in the left ventricle, 120 mm Hg.
During diastole, the pressure in the left ventricle is close to 0; so the aortic valve is held shut by a pressure difference of 80 mm Hg.
Beyond the large arteries the pressures drop sharply, and the diastolic and systolic pressures gradually converge.
When the blood reaches the capillaries, the flucations are minor
the largest part of the pressure drop is in the small arteries, the arterioles, pressure drops a little more in the capillaries
blood pressures on the pulmonary loop are much lower, even though the overall volume flow rates have to be the same.

Chapter 5 How Blood Moves

Fluids in Motion Don't Shrink or Swell
in addition to the no-slip condition of fluids there is compression
for problems involving the flow of fluids they can be treated as if they are incompressible
the main consequence of low compression is that the density is constant—pushed by pressure upstream or pulled by lower pressure downstream, the density remains the same
a gallon of blood has the same mass in the high systolic pressure of the left ventricles or at the relaxed right atrium
Example: drinking straw, the mass of fluid is the same at both ends of the straw
principle of continuity-volume per unit going in must equal volume per unit going out
flow goes from right atrium to right ventricle to lungs to left atrium to left ventricle to body capillaries and back to right atrium, and no component can be bypassed
One of the awkward anatomical facts that Harvey dealt with was why the lungs get their blood through a pipe, the pulmonary trunk, of an internal diameter just about the same as that of the great aorta

Flow in Nozzles and Branches
volume flow rate is the same everywhere in a serially arranged sequence of pipes
nozzles work by affecting the flow between narrow and wide pipes
overall flow rate is 100 cubic centimeters per second (1.5 gallons per minute)

The Character of Flow
the entire qualitative character of motion
in pipes there are 2 kinds of flow; laminar and turbulent (illustrated on Page 81)
laminar flow is illustrated with a stream of dye which remains in the middle of the pipe with little spreading of the dye stream
turbulent flow is illustrated with the dye stream breaking up and colouring the entire flow
What determines which kind of flow occurs in a given situation?
Reynolds number describes the flow as laminar or turbulent. The variable is the density of the fluid times the diameter o the pipe times the speed of flow divided by the viscosity of the fluid. High Reynolds numbers indicate turbulent, low numbers laminar
fluids resist deforming motion, (little bits of fluid like to flow together)
human bodies-turbulent flow during vigorous exercise, but even the flow through our largest pipes is normally laminar flow

• Working Bibliography Harvey Project

Sources Avaliable at the Western Library

London Public Library

Weiss, David. ''Physician extraordinary; a novel of the life and times of William Harvey.'' Delacorte Press: 1975.

Oxlade, Chris. ''The circulatory system''. Chicago: World Book, 2007.

Jakab, Cheryl. ''Circulatory system''. 2006.

Gray, Susan. ''The circulatory system''. 2004.

Gottlieb, Erren. ''Blood and circulation video recording''. 2003

*some of this is rather difficult to read but it may be nice to use some direct quotes from Harvey in our exhibit

De Motu Cordis
Anatomical Exercises Concerning the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Living Creatures (Preface)

x.And Since this only Book does affirm the blood to pass forth and return through unwonted tracts, contrary to the received way, through so many ages of years insisted upon, and evidenced by innumerable, and those most famous learned men, I was greatly afraid to suffer this little Book, otherways perfect some years ago. . . least it might seem an action to full of arrogancy. . .
[William Harvey sent his book to be read by D. Argent, President of the college of Physicians in London before publishing it]

2.For if pulse and respiration do serve for the same use, and that arteries do receive the air into their concavities in the Diastole, as they commonly say, and that in their Systole they send out fumes through the pores of the flesh and skin; . . . and that everytime they do either expel Air, or Spirits; what will they then answer to Galen? Who wrote a Book, that blood was naturally contained in the arteries, and nothing but blood, that there is neither Spirits, nor Air, as from Reasons and Experiment in the same Book we may easily gather.
[William Harvey bases some of his work on the earlier work of Galen – who argued that arteries do not contain “Spirits” or “Air” but rather are only vessels of transportation for blood, perhaps a good starting point for discussing previous medical beliefs and theories]

5.The experiment of Galen is thus, Bind the Arterie at both ends with a little cord, and cutting it up in length, in the middle you shall find, in that place which is comprehended betwixt the two ligatures, nothing but blood, and so does he prove that it contains only blood [experiment example]

6.But I believe I can demonstrate and have heretofore demonstrated, that the arteries are distended, because they are fill'd up like Satchells or baggs, not because they are blow up like bladders.

8.nor let any man believe, that use use of pulse and respiration is one and the same because the pulses are greater, more frequent, and swifter, for the same causes as respiration is . . . For not only i that experiment false . . . but likewise in boys, pulses are frequent, and respiration the wile very seldom
[I.e. Beating and pulse are not related although some wold claim they are as exampled when running the pulse and beating are faster but Harvey explains this is disproved by other things such as fear. . . He also refers to Galen again saying he (galen) has proved this otherwise]

9.They do comonley affirm that the heart is the store-house and fountain of vital Spirit, by which i gives life to all parts. . . they deny the right ventricle makes Spirits, but only gives nourishment to the lungs
[Harvey questions this thinking as both ventricle, upon dissection are alike – and that if the lungs rely on the right ventricle something must therefore rely on the left ventricle – also he argues the belief that air and spirits pass through the lungs to the heart, as if performed in experiment (in a live dog) you fill he lungs with air and then cut open the arteria venosa you will find no air in it – further he states that the arteria venosa has the constitution of a vein” and why would this be if it were used for conveyance of air/spirits.

Anatomical Exercises Concerning The Motion of The Heart and Blood in Living Creatures (Ch 1)

16.[Harvey fond it difficult at first when doing experiments on living creatures to] Rightly distinguish, which way the Dastole and Systole came to be, nor when nor where the distolation and constriction had its existence. [At first he attributes this to the fact that perhaps it is for God alone to understand the motion of the heart]

17.At last using daily more search and diligence, by often looking into many and several sorts of creatures . . . [I] freed myself from this Labyrinth, and though I ad gain'd both the motion and use of the heart, together with that of the arteries
[he publicly delivers this information through lectures] Which, as it commonly falls out pleased some, and displeased others: Some there were that did check me, spoke harshly, and found fault that I had departed from the precepts and belief of all Anatomists; Others avouching that it was a thing new, worthy of their knowledge, and exceedingly profitable, requir'd it to be more plainly delivered to them.

18.[uses a great quote in reference to his work from the old man in Comedy] “No man so well e'r laid his count to live, - But that things, age, and use some new things give, - That what you thought you knew, you shall not know, - And what you once thought best, you shall forgo

What manner of motion the Heart has in the dissection of living creatures (Ch 2)

19./ 20. [in the dissection of living creatures especially warm blooded ones - upon observing the motion and state of the heart Harvey notes three observations] 1 that the heart is erected, and that it raises it self upwards into a point, insomuch that it beats the breast at that time so, as the pulsation is felt outwardly. 2. That there is a constriction of it everyway, especially the sides of it, so that it appears lesser, longer and contracted. 3. That the heart being grasp'd in one's hand whilst it i in motion, fells harder. This hardness arises from tension [he observes that especially in colder Animals that have blood that the motion of the heart was like that of muscles]

21.you shall understand that it is otherwise, and that when the heart is contracted it is emptied. For that the motion which is comonley through the Diastole of the heart, is really the Systole, and so the proper motion of the heart is not a Diastole but a Systole

What manner of motion the Heart and the ears of it have in living creatures (Ch 4)

33.I have likewise observ'd, that there is really a heart in all animals, and not only (as Aristotle says) in the greater sort, and such as have blood, but like-wise in lesser, and such as have none, as those that are crusted without, or have shells. [Harvey continues on to say that he has even observed the heart of a wasp with a microscope]

The action and office of the motion of the Heart. (Ch 5)

37.But whether the heart contribute any thing else to the blood, besides the transportation, local motion, and distribution of it, we must enquire first and collect out of other observations. . . it is sufficientley evidenced, that in the beating of the heart the blood I transfused and drawn out of the veins into the arteries through the ventricles of the heart, and so distributed into the whole body.

By which ways the blood is carried out of the vena cava into the arteries, or out of the right ventricle of the heart into the left (Ch 6)

43.[Harvey is speaking of the septum here and his observances about its function] This membrane [septum], I say, is so ordained, that hanging loosley with it's own weight, it makes way into the lungs and heart, and is turned up, giving passage to the blood which flows from the vena cava, but hinders it from flowing back to the cava again.

46.[Harvey identifies that in embryos both sides of the lung are open to each other] So in Embryons whilst the lungs are idle, and have no action nor motion (as if there were none at all) Nature makes use of both ventricles of the heart, as of one for the transmission of the blood. [Harvey identifies that this is the same as in animal species that do not have lungs]

8. Whether this be, because the greater and perfect creatures are hotter, and when they come to be of age, their heat is apter to be suffocated and to b inflamed, an therefore the blood is streyn'd and sent through the lungs that it ma be temper'd by breathing in the air upon it, and freed from over heating and suffocation, or some other thing. But to determine and give a reason for this is nothing else but a search for what the lungs were made. [Harvey does not know exactly how the lungs work in relation to the heart and circulatory em, he thinks they may act as a cooling method for the body. He also sees this is a subject for future research to be “set forth in a Treatise by themselves.”]

That the blood does pass from the right ventricle of the heart, through the streyner of the lungs, into the arteria venosa & left ventricle of the heart. (Ch 7)

49.-50. [Harvey explains that those who deny that blood passes through the liver and lungs are incorrect, as seat passes through skin, or as “drink” passes through the liver]

51.Why should hey likewise not believe this of the passage of the blood through the lungs in men come to age, upon the same arguments? And with Columbus, a most skilful and learned Anatomist, believe and assert the same from the structure and largeness of the lungs.

Of the abundance of blood passing through the Heart out of the veins into the arteries, and of the circular motion of the blood (Ch 8)
[this chapter is very relevant to our project]

57. Yet when I shall mention them, they are so new and unheard of, that not only I fear mischief which may arrive to me from the envy of some persons but I likewise doubt that every man will be my enemy . . . Howsoever, my resolution is now set down, my hope is in the candor of those which love truth, and learned spirits. [Once again Harvey expresses concern over the reaction that people will have to his work]

58. at last I perceived that the veins should be quite emptied, and the arteries on the other side be burst with to much intrusion of blood, unless the blood did pass back again by some way out of the veins into the arteries, and return into the right ventricle of the heart. I began to bethink my self if it might not have a circular motion, which afterwords I found true. [he further describes the path of the blood flow from the left ventricle of he heart to the lungs through the 'vena arteriosa' by the beating of the right ventricle and then returns through little veins to the vena cava to the “right ear” of the heart]

59. [this is just a great quote and really portrays the way Harvey thought about he human body in relation to the natural world] So the heart is the beginning of life, the Sun of the Microcosm, as proportionably the Sun deserves to be call'd the heart of the world.

That there is a Circulation of the blood from the confirmation of the first supposition. (Ch 9)

The First supposition concern the quantities of the blood which passes through from the veins into the arteries, an that there is a circulation of the blood is vindicated from objections, and further confirmed by experiment (Ch 10)

The second supposition is confirmed (Ch 11)

De Motu Illustrations.odg

Bacon's book The New Organon http://www.constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.htm (Novum Organum in Latin) describes Bacon's system of logic (precursor to scientific theory) The book was published in 1620.

William Harvey's De Motu Cordis was published in 1628, and his De Circulatione Sanguinis published in 1649 – It is very possible that he was influenced by Bacon.

Bacon relies on a system of observation rather than philosophising or attempting to understand what is unknown by applying traditional physiological methods to it. He says that working in this manner has resulted in a stagnation of the sciences, and that new discoveries cannot be made if all research is done to fit to old philosophical methods (of thinking about things rather than experimenting and observing them).

Here are some valuable excerpt from his book:

Preface of The New Organon

“Now my method, though hard to practice, is easy to explain; and it is this. I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty. The evidence of the sense, helped and guarded by a certain process of correction, I retain. But the mental operation which follows the act of sense I for the most part reject; and instead of it I open and lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple sensuous perception . . . namely, that the entire work of the understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the very outset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step; and the business be done as if by machinery. . .whereas in every great work to be done by the hand of man it is manifestly impossible, without instruments and machinery, either for the strength of each to be exerted or the strength of all to be united.”

“Let there be therefore (and may it be for the benefit of both) two streams and two dispensations of knowledge, and in like manner two tribes or kindreds of students in philosophy — tribes not hostile or alien to each other, but bound together by mutual services; let there in short be one method for the cultivation, another for the invention, of knowledge. . . to make my meaning clearer and to familiarize the thing by giving it a name, I have chosen to call one of these methods or ways Anticipation of the Mind, the other Interpretation of Nature.”

Book 1
I
“Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything. “
III
Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.
XI
As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.
XIX
There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

Why is William important?
- William Harvey is the founder of modern physiology. . . He discovered that the blood circulates, learned the true purpose of the venos valves, promoted the correct understanding of the heart motion, constituted to embryology, and strongly influenced the next generation of medical/biological researchers. (1)
- Harvey’s success and influence resulted not only from his experimental technique, but also his careful use of purpose (35)

Who/ What were his Influences?

Plato and Aristotle
- Scientists assumed that nature exhibited careful design and therefore purpose.(19) both Plato and Aristotle included purpose in their philosophies or final causation (Aristotle) (20) According to Aristotle there was no place for chance in nature except as an accident or mistake. . . “That Nature is a case, then, and a goal oriented cause, is above all dispute.” (21)

Galen
- Galen became a physician surgeon to gladiators in Pergamum which was an excellent way to study human anatomy as societal taboos forbade human dissection. By extending medical research from anatomy to physiology, Galen placed the art of medicine on more scientific foundations. Galen used purpose in his research. For example he asked what organs exist for the purpose or end of nutrition. (21) Galen in line with the Socratic thought of his day, believed that God ordered all nature. (22)
Aristotelian Thought in the 16th and 17th centuries
- When 16th and 17th centuries natural philosophers used the term “final cause” they did not follow the same concept as Aristotle had. This was due to the 13th century tension between reason and revelation that Thomas Aquinas tried to solve by modifying the concept of final cause to mean “God’s Intention.”(24) Plato and Aristotle thought that design in nature was the best, as far as this was attainable. However new philosophers began to think that God’s design creation was the best no matter what the circumstances. This lead them to think about more than just purpose they began to consider “efficient purpose.” (25)

The Scientific Revolution
- Finds its origin in two key events in 1543 Visalus’s publication of “De Humani Corpois Farica” and Copernicus’s publication “De Revolutions orbitum calestium.” (25)

Vesalius
- 1539 produced a publication on the subject of bloodletting and teh correct location of the vein from which to draw blood. The physical discover of valves in the veins would be a key factor in Harvey’s determination that blood circulates Vesalius believed that these membranes strengthened the veins. Vesalius also found any discrepancies in Galenic anatomy, thus encouraging a new method and authority of active observation, he felt that readers of his book should not just accept what he said but should check out the description through observation or dissection. (27) While Vesalius did not agree with Galen’s concept of anatomy(body structure) he still tended to follow Galen’s physiology (body function). He did find anomalies in Galen’s argument concerning the claim that the arterial pulse is synchronous with the cardiac contraction, and Galen’ claim that pores pass through the septum the heart. Harvey built on this in his work concerning circulation and the structure of the heart. (27)

Fabricius
- Harvey studied under Hieronymous Fabricius of Aquapendente at Padua – he was Harvey’s most influential teacher. While dissecting in 1574 , Fabricius independently discovered the cusps in the veins we now call vales (he called them “ostiola”). As the pre-eminent anatomist, Fabricius might have discovered the blood’s circulation. The physical discovery of ostolia unbalanced Galen’s explanation. But Fabricius used modified Galen’s theory somewhat rather than completely discrediting it. (30) Fabricius had correctly depicted the structure of the ostola and their location in the body. However he incorrectly described how the ostiola worked (function) and gave a wrong explanation about why they were in the body (purpose). (32)
- Fabricius criticized Vesalius for not going beyond careful anatomy to physiology. Both Fabricius and Harvey realized the next area in which new discoveries should be made was physiology but Harvey’s work was more thorough and productive.

William Harvey’s life

Harvey’s Education
- Harvey attended Cambridge where standard undergraduate classes included ethics, logic, rhetoric, and physics (a mix of scientific topics). There were no formal lectures in medical topics, but informal ones were occasionally given. There was instruction in the medical readings of Galen and Hippocates. There were some dissections, usually in winter months as the body would be better preserved over the several days and anatomy took place. (39) what he learned at Cambridge could be classified as Christianized Aristotle. He received his BA. In 1597.
- Since the medical curriculum at Cambridge and other English Universities was merely a literary study of the subject Harvey left to complete his studies on the continent. (41)

Harvey’s life after school
- In 1602 Harvey left Padua and returned to London. In May 1604 he became a member of the college of Physicians. Sir Francis Bacon was the attorney general at this time (42)
- 1609 medical appointment at St. Bartholomew (sick urban poor)(46)
- 1618 became physician to king James I in 1627, when James died Harvey became King Charles I’s doctor. (46)

William Harvey’s Work

The Discoveries
- Harvey’s conceptual discovery of the circulation of the blood was an outgrowth of the series of anatomical lectures that he gave at the Royal College of Physicians. To prepare for these lectures Harvey read widely including books by Visalius, Fabrichius, Alberti, and Piccolomini as well as Laurentius (who argued that the best anatomical approach was by doctrine (final cause/purpose) and inspections (experience/observation). Harvey did follow this method but he took both purpose as theory and observation/experiment to new heights of refinement. (51) - This runs counter to claims that Harvey thought in terms of function, not purpose, that he was basically a mechanist and that he used the hypothetico-deductive method.
- In his own way Harvey realised the importance of anomalies in scientific advance and aggressive sought them. For example in his discussion in De Motu Corids about the purpose of the right ventricle in sending blood to the lungs, he identifies that the right ventricle is oversized compared to the left , he then continue to ask why is so much blood being sent to the lungs.(54-55)
- Harvey’s conception that the blood circulates can be dissected in terms of what how and when. Most estimates for when fall between 1619-1628. Relying n the work of Robert Boyle who recorded his conversations with William Harvey re. the what and how of his discoveries (56) we learn that Harvey observed the orientation of the valves in the veins and also by extension asked why we there none in the arteries?(59) He also observed that since the valves were oriented to allow blood to flow only towards the heart and not he extremities both Galen and Fabricius claims were incorrect. (63)
- Harvey’s theory of circulation was influenced by a few key ideas: 1. Reasoned anomalies based on his experience, 2. The symmetry and magnitude of the heart ventricles and associated vessels, 3. The skilful and careful craftsmanship of the heart valves as well as other parts of the heart, 4. The amount and transmission of the blood transmitted by the heart.
- Harvey of course had no direct proof of the circulation of blood as he could not see capillaries but his use of observation, and reasoning (purpose) to prove his point allowed for the development of a strong theory. (82-83)

William Harvey’s World View

The Influence of Bacon
- Harvey was a physician to Francis Bacon, and their careers overlapped under King James I Harvey was one of teh Kings physicians while Bacon was Lord Chancellor. Bacon scientific model rested on experimentation, and less reliance on the observation of purpose. (84-87)

The Influence of Descartes
- Descartes advocated a mechanistic approach to doing science which contrasts in some respects to a purpose based approach. However both accepted the idea of an intentional universe n which God had made and pre-ordained everything.(90) They differed predominantly in their ideas/observations about the way in which the heart operates. (92-94)

The Influence of Religion
- As a young boy (age 10) William Harvey experienced a word at war based predominately on religious ideals. In 1588 the Spanish Armada (Under the religion of Catholicism) attempted to invade England (Predominately Protestant). This followed continued English raiding of Spanish shipping, pro-Catholic anti-Elizabethan plots in England, Elizabeth’s support of the Protestant revolt in the Netherlands, the assassination of William of Orange (n 1584) and Philip’s seizure in 1585 of all English ships in harbours controlled by Spain, as well as the execution of Queen Mary (meaning that England would totally be Philip’s if he succeeded) (10-9) Both Spain and England believed that God was on their side (both politically and religiously) The Spanish fleet would eventually fail their mission, and the English would claim that God had been on their side. (13-15) In 1597 the Spanish attempted another invasion, with a much larger armada, but once again England was spared (by bad weather)(17). These events would serve to strengthen Harvey’s belief in his country and the protestant religion.

Aristotle believed there was a dual sense of causation and explanation in biology. Everything happens for a reason so if there is something wrong with the body it must have a cuase. He wouldn't attune things to the Gods but to tangible explanations that can be treated. He would use dissections to understand the workings of the body. He believed the heart was home of the soul and that material passed in through the heart. In his work entitles De Partibus Animalium 1 which translates to the parts of the animals he states:

"Exposition should be like this: for example, breathing takes place on account of this [final cause] while that takes place out of necessity. Necessity signifies that if, (1) that is for-the-sake-of-which, then (2) these are in this manner necessary since they are this state owing to their nature. [For example], the hot necessarily goes out and comes in again when it meets resistance, and that the air should go in is already necessitated. And the hot substance within, as cooling occurs, offers resistance, and this causes the entrance of the outside air and its exit."

Aristotle classified animals into two categories the highest reasoning creatures possessing red blood and those possessing clear colourless fluid instead of blood of invertebrates which inclused insects and plants.

We want to take into account scientific, sociological and historical approaches to the character of history. Scientific approaches to Harvey explain his discoveries through his use of reason and it being a result of ration guiding him. Sociological and historical approaches explain how Harvey was influenced by societal forces. Essentially, we need to approach the topic from an explanation of his science and also why he did the science that he did.

It was in the 17th century that the theories of Galen in regards to blood circulation were debunked with the discoveries of William Harvey (1578-1657). Harvey approached the circulation of the blood from an isolated point of view that excluded theories or ideas of what else happened to the blood when it entered the heart, liver, lungs, etc. Either through chance or Harvey’s own intention, he applied the mechanistic approach only to circulation, which adheres well to it, and he avoided applying mechanistic explanations to any other areas of human medicine.

He was “old-fashioned” in many ways. In refuting Galen he quickly cites Galen’s work in his own observations as a way to justify them. He was also influenced by Aristotelian philosophy of the time, and “believing the heart to be the central organ of the body and blood to b3e the principle of life. Like other Aristotelians, he was looking for circulatory processes everywhere. Even his Royalism may have contributed to his discovery, for he thought the heart as the “king” of the body.” (Ack. 114)

Quotations

“Harvey’s approach was mechanistic in accordance with the prevailing attitude of his time.”

“Harvey’s first proof was based on morphological arguments drawn from the vivisection of animals.” He observed how the body moved and how the parts functioned.

“Harvey’s second argument was of a mathematical and quantitative nature.”

“Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood naturally encountered violent opposition and even resulted in a falling-off of his personal practice. He seems to have been an indifference practitioner in any case. His Royalist political views made him unpopular with many. He was court physician to Charles I and paid unswerving loyalty to the king during the great English revolution. “

“On the other hand acceptance of his discovery was not lacking, and almost immediately two logical conclusions were drawn from the new information: the possibility of injecting medicaments intravenously, and the possibility of transfusing blood.”

Son

on Apirl 1, 1578 Harvey was born in a prosperous family in Folkstone, Kent, a small town in the south England as the eldest son among the 7 sons and 2 daughters of Thomas Harvey, who was a farmer and merchant, and became jurat or alderman of Folkestone, and in 1600, was Mayor. He was considered to be a man of intelligence and an able manager of both his own affairs and those of the town. Harvey was provided with a happy family life and instilled the value of education and such qualities as diligence and loyalty.

Harvey's brother John, became servant-in-ordinary or footman to James I. He was a member of Gray's Inn and occupied other positions connected with the Court and Government, and was Member of Parliament of Hythe.

Student

King's School
In 1588, 10-year-od Harvey went to King's School, Canterbuy, established by King Henry VIII in 1541. The School was selective and strict in its admission of pupils, but provided scholarship to competent sons of parents unable to pay for their education.

Gonville and Caius College
In May 1593, 15-year-old Harvey matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, and later this year was awarded a scholarship by Matthew Parker, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, for the study of medicine and subject useful to medicine. There Harvey studied from 5 am to 9 pm, including compulsory attendance at lectures, supervised periods of study and reasoning, and daily church service, which probably gave Harvey a good education in the humanities, including Latin, Greek and natural sciences. In 1597, Harvey received a B. A. degree, and spent 2 more years at Cambridge.

Padua University
In 1599, 20-year-old Harvey went to Padua University to complete his medical studies. Padua University had the best medical school in Europe and was at the summit of its fame at that time, and was also a liberal establishment and allowed non-Catholics to study there (Harvey was a devout member of the Church of England). There Harvey studied under the famed anatomist Fabricius of Aquapendente, and became intimate with him, who was then engaged in studying the valves in the veins.

Padua was the seat of two Universities, the Univeristy of the Jurists and the University of the Humanists. Harvey was a member of the fist one and entered there in 1598. The University were Student Universities, where were governed by the students themselves. According to their nationality, the students at Padua were enrolled into bodies called "Nations." Each "Nation" elected a concilarius or representative to sit on the governing council, and Harvey was chosen Concilarius of the English "Nation" on the first of August in the years 1600, 1601, and 1602.

Harvey was elected a memeber of the governing council in 1600 to represent the English "naiton" of students, a post which involved the duty of getting drunk forty times a year, which also afforded him some privileges. One was a place in the first of the six galleries of the now-famous anatomy theater at Padua, where he might attend Fabricius's lectures about valves, who was the professor of anatomy and surgery at that time and discovered the valves of veins in 1574. In 1602, Harvey received his doctorate in medicine at Padua and Cambridge, and returned to England to practice in London.

Husband

In 1604, Harvey settled in London, and married Elizabeth Browne, the daughter of a prominent London physician, Lancelot Browne, physician in ordinary to the Queen and King James I. They had no children.

Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians

Lecturer
In 1604, Harvey was admitted as a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians of London. From 1615 to 1656, Harvey was a lecturer at the College of Physicians lecturing in anatomy and surgery. In 1616 he gave the first of his Lumleian Lectures before the Royal College of Physicians, the manuscript notes of which contain the first account of blood circulation. His lectures notes, handwritten in a mixture a Latin and English, are preserved in the British Museum. The lecturer of anatomy during the 16th and 17th centuries was a person of considerable importance and highly regarded.

Medical administrator on behalf of the college of Physician
Harvey served on several occasions as a censor who, together with three other fellows, was responsible for monitoring those those who practiced medicine in London and surrouding areas. Harvey was one of eight elects whose duty was to examine those desiring to practice medicine throughout England. For a while, Harvey also the treasurer of the college (1628 and 1629)

Physician and medical practioner at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London
In 1609 Harvey became physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He retired in 1643, one year after the Civil War,

Physician to James I and Charles I
On Feb. 3, 1618, Harvey was appointed physician extraordinary to King James I, who died in 1625. In 1630, he was appointed physician-in-ordinary to King Charles I. They became friends and the king was interested in Harvey's comparative anatomical and embryological studies. He allowed him to use animals from the royal parks for some of his investigations. In 1633 he was with Charles's court in Scotland.

In 1639, the Civil War broke. Harvey, who was loyal to the king, accompanied the king on his military expeditions. During absence from his quarters in Whitehall Palace his chambers were pillaged by Parliamentary soldiers in 1642, which resulted in considerable loss of his many valuable scientific manuscripts. Following the Battle at Edgehill in 1642, the king's troop arrived in Oxford on October 29 this year. Harvey was made doctor of physics at Oxford University. In 1645, he was elected Warden of Merton College, a position he held for a year. In 1646, he retired from the position of Warden of Merton College, and fled with the court from Oxford back to London, and then retired to live with his remaining brothers. At Oxford, Harvey did not only continue his comparative anatomical studies and dissections, but he closely collaborated with several distinguished men of sciences who eventually paved the way for the establishment f the Royal Society in 1660.

Death
Harvey had retired from his position of warden of Merton College he was 68 years old and he was a sick man, suffering from gout. The king, his friend and patron, was in prison. Harvey had already suffered tremendous personla losses through the ransackingof his quaters, the destruction of his museum, and loss of his notes that recorded the scientific observations he had made over the years. He lived his last years in the house of his brother Eliab at Roehampton and died on June 3, 1657. His body, wrapped in lead, was entombed in the family chapel at Hampstead Parish Church which lies in Essex.

Contents

Around 1618-20, Harvey had formed his idea of a circular movement for blood. During the next decade he gathered information to support his hypothesis and not published his book until 1628. It was a poorly printed 72-page book, done by an obscure printer in Frankfurt. In this book, Harvey's doctrine of blood circulation is a cyclical process: The heart was a pump; The blood could only flow from the atria to the ventricles; The difference between the blood in the articles and veins were maximally reduced; The ventricles could only propel blood away from the left and the rest of the body; The valves prevented blood from flowing in the opposite direction.

It is against Galenic doctrine of a Back and Froth movement:
Blood was formed in the liver; The nenous blood nourished the body and the arterial blood carried a vital spirit bestowed on it in the heart from air; The blood move through the veins to the various parts of the body; Some of the blood went to the right ventricle of the heart, and became divided into two portions. One portion went to the lungs; The other portion passed through minut pores in the spetum to the left bentricles, then entered the arona, from where it reached the lungs and other parts of the body; The arteries also contain blood, but were not significant parts of the heart, but extensions of large blood vessels

Process of the establishment

Morphological arguments
Harvey studied the structure of the heart and blood vessels of numerous vertebrates as well as some invertebrates by dissection and vivisection. These knowledge, in addtion to the absence of pores in the spectum and and the location of the vessels which short-circuit the lung in fetal circulation showed that in order to move from the right to left side of the heart all blood had to pass through the lungs. And the structure of the valves of the veins supported the assumption of an exclusively centripetal movement of the blood in these vessels.

During this process, Harvey encountered with some difficulties. he was discouraged at first by the rapidity of the blood movement in his vivisection of warm-blooded animals, such as birds and mammals, so Harvey solved the problem by dissecting cold-blooded animals such as fishes, frogs, and snakes, in which the heart beats more slowly. Harvey also observed the constraction and relaxation of atria and ventricles of the heart and to determine the relationship between these movements and the valves of the organ by vivisecting warm-blooded animals just pior to death.

Analogical reasoning
Harvey thought that it was difficult from blood to flow from the right ventricle to the left ventricle, since both ventricles contract simultaneously. Furthermore, He noted that the septum has its own arteries and veins. If blood could pass through the septum, there would be no need for vessels to supply it with blood. So the open way was from the right ventricle to the lungs and from there to left atrium and ventricle.

Mathematical and quantitative analoy
He mesuereed thee mass of blood that passed through the heart in a given time. In the case of a sheep with a total blood volume of four pounds, he estimated that the mass was 1,000 scruples, or 3% pounds, within half an hour. He then showed that the body was unalbe to produce such masses in such a short time and that the blood mass could be kept constant only in a system of circulation

Experiment and Observation
Experiments with snakes showed that ligation of the vena cava left the heart empty, while ligation of the aorta accumulated blood in the heart. This confrimed Harvey's hypothesis of the one-way direction of the bloodstream.

The routine bandaging in bloodletting was used for simple experiments on the same problem. Tight application of the bandage compressed the artery and stopped the pulse; looser bandaging produced stasis in the veins. A vein which was emptied between two valves by centripetal pressure did not refill from above.

Harvey also used additional miscellaneous arguments, such as the fact that poinsons are distributed by circulation.

Immaturity

Capillary vessels
Because of the tech limitation at Harvey's time, capillary vessels were not found, and Harvey did not understand how the venous blood was changed into artery blood

Pulmonary circulation
Harvey fell back on the discussions of the function of breathing which traditionally stressed the cooling effect. "It may be that the larger, more perfect animals are warmer and when full grown their greater heat is thus more easily damped. For this reason the blood may go through the lungs, to be cooled by the inspired air and saved from boiling and extinction."

The Anatomical Theater of the University of Padua is one of the oldest, most important and best-known historical “medical” buildings. The Anatomical Theater was built in 1594 by Fabricius ad Acquapendente. The construction occupies the two upper floors on the north west side of the University building, the Palazzo Bo, It is shaped like an elliptical, upside-down cone with six concentric tiers with carved, walnut wood balustrades. Scholars of the caliber of William Harvey (1578-1657), Giovan Battista Morgagni (1682-1771) and Antonio Scarpa (1747-1832) have stood around this dissecting table. Other centers of study and research set up based on Paduan model all over Europe. Although the Theater was in use for almost three centuries it is still well preserved and, apart from a few 18th century modifications, in its original state.

Pictures of The Anatomical Theater in Padua
Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3

Pic 1: A Model of The Anatomical Theater in Padua

Pic 2: A Sketch of The Theater: The corpse is lying on the dissection table in the middle, at ground level, of the amphitheatre. There were six elevated rows for up to 300 persons, standing.

Pic 3: The Theater from a bird's view

Other Anatomical theaters around the same period

Anatomical theatre in Leiden
Pic 1 Pic 2

Pic 1: The Anatomical Theater in Leiden. It was designed after the anatomical theater in Padua and built in 1597 under the direction of Pieter Pauw. This engraving (1610) by Swanenburg shows the interior of the theater. A corpse lies on the centrally placed table, and one of the two men inspecting it lifts the coving to show the dissection that is in progress. The abdominal viscera is revealed. An assortment of surgical instruments can be seen in the background. There are several well-dressed men and women in the room, conversing or looking at the odd collection of skeletons and mounted specimens.

Pic 2: Theatrum anatomicum in Leiden. Anatomical lecture at the time of Peter Pauw. Copperplate engraving, probably 1615. in: G. Wolf-Heidegger and A. M. Cetto. Basel 1967.

Anatomical theatre in the Archiginnasio (University of Bologna) dated 1637

William Harvey and Charles I by Robert Hannah, 1848

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