Hyderabad: William Harvey was born in Folkestone, Kent on 1 April 1578. His father was a merchant. On his return from Italy in 1602, Harvey established himself as a physician. His career was helped by his marriage to Elizabeth Browne, daughter of Elizabeth I's physician, in 1604.
Harvey was educated at King's College, Canterbury and then at Cambridge University. He then studied medicine at the University of Padua in Italy, where the scientist and surgeon Hieronymus Fabricius tutored him.
- He was the first known physician to describe the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and the rest of the body by the heart, completely and in detail.
- Fabricius, who was fascinated by anatomy, recognised that the veins in the human body had one-way valves, but was puzzled as to their function.
- It was Harvey who took the foundation of Fabricius's teaching and went on to solve the riddle of what part the valves played in the circulation of blood through the body.
- Harvey returned to England in 1602. On his return, the University of Cambridge awarded him a Doctor of Medicine degree, adding to the one he already had from Padua. He then moved to London to work as a physician.
- Harvey retained a close relationship with the royal family through the English Civil War and witnessed the Battle of Edgehill.
- For a short time, he was warden of Merton College, Oxford (1645 - 1646). He died on 3 June 1657.
Books Published: 1628 he published his theories in a book entitled 'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus. it means Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood.
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