Tag: William Harvey
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Alternatives to blood transfusion
Geraldine MillerLiverpool, England In 1616 William Harvey first discovered how blood circulates around the body. This discovery stimulated research into transfusing blood from one person to another. Early attempts to replace blood began with liquids such as milk, both animal and human, urine, and beer. Sir Christopher Wren in the seventeenth century even suggested opium…
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Blood is NOT the essence of life?
Mair ZamirLondon, Ontario, Canada We think of blood somewhat reverently as the essence of life. Yet we miss the point. The essence of life is not blood, it is blood flow. When the heart stops beating the body dies, not because of lack of blood but because of lack of blood flow. In most cases…
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Christopher Wren and blood circulation
Richard de GrijsSydney, AustraliaDaniel VuillerminBeijing, China “A young man of marvellous gifts who, when not yet sixteen years of age, advanced astronomy, gnomonics, statics, and mechanics by his distinguished discoveries, and from then on continues to advance these sciences. And truly he is the kind of man from whom I can shortly expect great things.”…
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Human heart in Descartes’s De Homine
The famous philosopher René Descartes had an interest in physiology. But although he is known to have carried out dissections and even vivisections, he was a theoretician and not an experimentalist. In 1643 he wrote that having read William Harvey’s 1628 De Moto Cordis he agreed with the theory that the blood circulated through the…
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“Blood made White”: The relationship between blood and breastmilk in early modern England
Jennifer EvansSara ReadUnited Kingdom The early modern body was thought to be composed of and ordered by an intricate balance of fluids, the most important of which was blood. Blood was universally understood to have two origins: the heart and the liver. Together with the brain, these organs formed what Galen called “the noble organs.”…
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A theologian answers questions about the heart: St. Thomas Aquinas’ De Motu Cordis
Michael PottsNorth Carolina, United States Suppose you are a high school teacher in a basic biology class and you have a question about the function of the heart. You decide to ask an expert, so you dial a university and ask for . . . a theologian. This is what one teacher did, although he…
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William Harvey
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States The impression that William Harvey (1578-1657) discovered the closed circulation of the blood is not entirely accurate, although after Harvey there was never any doubt about it. Regardless of what credit you ascribe to him, it is clear that his research benefited from more than two thousand years of…