On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals

Notebook

In De Motu Cordis (1628), the English physician William Harvey overturned more than a millennium of Galenic doctrine by demonstrating that the blood circulates continuously, driven by the heart as a muscular pump. Combining vivisection, quantitative reasoning about the volume of blood expelled per beat, and ligature experiments, he reached a conclusion that observation forced despite its break with ancient authority. Robert Willis's translation presents a landmark of the scientific revolution and the birth of modern physiology.

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