William+Harvey

** William Harvey ** By: keelym035

William Harvey was born on April, 1, 1578 in Folkestone, England which isn’t far from Dover. He was the oldest of his 7 brothers. When William was 10 years old he went to King’s school in Canterbury and at age 15 he finished school and went to look for a university. William wanted to study medicine and he got a scholarship for Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge. At that school William studied medicine, he also got his bachelor degree there in 1597. William then went to go study at the University of Padua in Italy. This school was known as one of the finest medical schools. One of William’s teachers did not know the purpose of one-way valves in veins and William proved that the valves prevented blood from flowing backward. William went back to London in 1602 to receive his medical degree and married the daughter of a physician, Elizabeth Brown. William Harvey was chosen to the fellowship of The Royal College of Physicians in 1607. He became one of King James I’s physicians in 1618 and was also King Charles I’s personal physician. King Charles I was interested in William’s research in circulation and gave him some animals to experiment on. William Harvey was also a physician at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital until 1643. He taught at that hospital as a professor and gave lectures about the heart and blood. There were many theories of how the circulatory system worked, but William had a different idea. He found out that blood entered the right side of the heart by going through the superior and inferior vena cava. The blood would than pass through the pulmonary arteries to the lungs. It then returns to the left atrium carrying oxygen and then goes through the left ventricle to be pumped throughout the body. William had discovered what the heart and blood really do by all his experiments on animals and humans. William Harvey taught many people of how the circulatory system really worked and it helped doctors everywhere. William Harvey died in London on June, 3, 1657. William Harvey found out what really happens in the circulatory system, but how does it work? Your blood carries oxygen and nutrients throughout your body. Your heart pumps the blood all throughout your body. Blood is carried by veins, arteries and capillaries. The arteries carry oxygen and nutrients in your bloodstream away from your heart and veins carry oxygen depleted blood back to the heart and lungs. Capillaries carry important nutrients in the blood into the organs.
 * Early Life **
 * William Harvey the Physician **
 * Circulatory System **
 * Did You Know…? **
 * Some of William Harvey’s experiments included dissecting many creatures including humans.
 * William Harvey wrote a famous book called //On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals//. The book made William become famous throughout Europe.
 * William’s wife, Elizabeth Brown was the daughter of a physician for Queen Elizabeth.
 * William taught one of his teachers what the purpose of one-way valves in your veins.
 * William Harvey was 79 years old when he died.
 * William Harvey made a lot of famous quotes one of them was “All we know is still infinitely less than all that remains unknown.”


 * Citations **
 * Allaby, Michael and Derek Gjertsen. //Makers of Science: Volume 1//. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print
 * //Britannica School//. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2013.Web. 18 Sep. 2013. .
 * Shackelford, Jole. //William Harvey and the Mechanics of the// //Heart//. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.