changing its color from dark purple to scarlet. Additionally, blood was said
to have naturally flowed from one side of the heart to the other through
large pores in the walls separating the large chambers.
The final, flawed observation about the function of the cardiovascular
system was that each organ consumed the blood, imbibing the vital spirit.
Any surplus blood merely evaporated. In conclusion, all parts of the body
pulled blood toward themselves, drawing in the pneuma and vaporizing
away all the superfluous blood. If blood continuously pulsed into dead-end
organs via the arteries, how else to explain the function of veins other than
claiming that it flowed in both directions in the veins?
Thus was the function of the heart and vessels presented. And it was all
breathtakingly wrong.
William Harvey graduated from the medical school in Padua in 1602,
and after a brief return to Kent, moved to London, where he would live for
the next fifty-five years (with an interrupted stay in Oxford during the
English Civil War). He promptly married a well-placed woman who was
the daughter of the physician to King James. While not a London native,
he steadily climbed the ranks of society, qualifying in 1607 as a fellow of
the College of Physicians, the small coterie of the most highly regarded
doctors. Even within the college, Harvey rose in stature, becoming the
treasurer within a few years of admission.
The “lowly and intensely intellectual country boy”^4 adopted the
manners of sophisticated life in London, climbing the social ladder and
navigating the court of King James. Like his patient Francis Bacon,
Harvey attempted to curry favor with the king, eventually being named
“physician extraordinary” in 1618, the same year Bacon was named Lord
Chancellor. With the death of King James, Charles I became king in 1625,
soon naming William Harvey “physician ordinary,” an even more
powerful and prosperous title. His newfound rank and affluence garnered
something even more important: the time and resources to perform
investigations. There can be little doubt that his exposure to Francis
Bacon, combined with his best-of-class medical training, prepared Harvey
to more scientifically evaluate the cardiovascular system.
As Harvey was advancing in rank and title, his practice thrived. He and
his wife were childless, leaving him with greater liberty to perform
investigations. By 1615 Harvey was the Lumleian lecturer in anatomy,
enjoying the reputation of a skilled dissector and gifted lecturer, stylishly