What did William Harvey discover in biology. William Harvey biography. Working at St. Bartholomew's Hospital
In 1598 Harvey went to the University of Padua. Here he listens to the lectures of the famous anatomist Fabrizio d "Aquapendente. This scientist discovered special valves in the veins, but did not understand their meaning. For him, they were only a detail of the structure of the veins.
But Harvey thought about the role of these valves. He decides to experiment on himself. Tightly bandaging his hand, William saw how the arm below the bandage soon became numb, the veins swelled, and the skin darkened. Harvey's next experiment was on a dog. He tied up both her legs with lace. And again, below the dressings, the legs began to swell, and the veins swell. When a swollen vein in one leg was cut, thick dark blood dripped from the cut. After an incision on the other leg above the dressing, not a single drop of blood flowed out of the cut. It became clear that the vein below the dressing was full of blood, but there was no blood in it above the dressing. Harvey dissects various animals, but most often cats, dogs, calves. The scientist also dissects the corpses of people: the prohibition to open corpses no longer existed. And every time he examined the veins and arteries, cut open the heart, studied the ventricles and atria.
In 1616, he was offered the chair of anatomy and surgery at the College of Physicians, and the very next year he expounded his views on blood circulation. During the lecture, Harvey first expressed the conviction that the blood in the body is constantly circulating - circulating, and that the heart is the central point of blood circulation. Making a similar conclusion, Harvey refuted Galen's theory that the liver is the center of blood circulation.
Only in 1628, when Harvey was already fifty years old, did his Anatomical Study of the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals come out, with the work appearing not at home, in England, but in distant Frankfurt. A small book of 72 pages made him immortal.
Harvey believed that the heart is a powerful muscular bag, divided into several chambers. Acting like a pump, it pumps blood into the vessels (arteries). Heartbeats are successive contractions of its departments - atria, ventricles, this external signs pump operation. Blood moves in two circles, always returning to the heart. In a large circle, blood moves from the heart to the head, to the surface of the body, to all its organs. In a small circle, blood moves between the heart and lungs. There is no air in the vessels because they are filled with blood. Common Path blood: from the right atrium - into the right ventricle, from there - into the lungs, from them - into the left atrium. This is the pulmonary circulation. The honor of opening the pulmonary circulation belongs to the Spaniard Servetus. Harvey could not know this, because the book of Servetus was burned. From the left ventricle, blood exits in the path of a large circle. First, through large, then through increasingly smaller arteries, it flows to all organs, to the surface of the body. The blood makes its way back to the heart (in the right atrium) through the veins. Both in the heart and in the vessels, blood flows in only one direction. This is because the valves of the heart do not allow reverse flow. The valves in the veins open the way only towards the heart. The arguments and evidence given in Harvey's book were very convincing. And yet, as soon as the book appeared, Harvey was attacked from all sides. The authority of Galen and other ancient sages was still too great. Harvey had to endure many troubles, but then more and more began to be reckoned with his teachings. Young doctors and physiologists followed Harvey, and at the end of his life the scientist waited for the recognition of his discovery. Harvey's discovery created a fundamental change in the development of medical science.
Harvey(Harvey) William (04/01/1578, Folkestone 06/03/1657, London), English naturalist and physician. In 1588 he entered the Royal School at Canterbury, where he studied Latin. In May 1593 he was admitted to Keyes College, Cambridge University. Harvey devoted the first three years of his studies to the study of disciplines useful for a doctor - classical languages(Latin and Greek), rhetoric, philosophy and mathematics. He was especially interested in philosophy; from all subsequent writings of Harvey it is clear that the natural philosophy of Aristotle had a huge influence on his development as a scientist. For the next three years, Harvey studied disciplines directly related to medicine. At that time in Cambridge this study consisted mainly of reading and discussing the works of Hippocrates, Galen and other ancient authors. Sometimes there were anatomical demonstrations; teacher natural sciences was required to do this every winter, and Keys College had permission to perform autopsies on executed criminals twice a year. In 1597, Harvey received a bachelor's degree, and in October 1599 he left Cambridge.
The exact date of his first visit to Padua is unknown, but in 1600 he already held the elective office of headman - representative English students at the University of Padua. The medical school in Padua was at that time at the height of its glory. April 25, 1602 Harvey completed his education, received his medical degree and returned to London. October 14, 1609 Harvey was officially enrolled in the staff of the prestigious hospital of St. Bartholomew. His duties included visiting the hospital at least twice a week, examining patients and prescribing medicines. Sometimes sick people were sent to his house. For twenty years, Harvey acted as the hospital's physician, despite the fact that his private practice in London was constantly expanding. In addition, he worked in the College of Physicians and conducted his own experimental studies. In 1613 Harvey was elected superintendent of the College of Physicians.
In 1628 Harvey's Anatomical Study of the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals (Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus) was published in Frankfurt. In it, he first formulated his theory of blood circulation and provided experimental evidence in its favor. By measuring the magnitude of the systolic volume, the heart rate and the total amount of blood in the body of a sheep, Harvey proved that in 2 minutes all the blood must pass through the heart, and within 30 minutes an amount of blood equal to the weight of the animal passes through it. From this it followed that, contrary to Galen's statements about the flow of more and more portions of blood to the heart from the organs that produce it, the blood returns to the heart in a closed cycle. The closure of the cycle is provided by the smallest tubes - capillaries that connect arteries and veins.
At the beginning of 1631, Harvey became a physician to King Charles I. Interested in Harvey's research, Charles placed at his disposal the royal hunting grounds in Windsor and Hampton Court for experiments. In May 1633 Harvey accompanied Charles I on his visit to Scotland. After the Battle of Edgehill in 1642 during civil war in England, Harvey followed the king to Oxford. Here he resumed medical practice and continued his observations and experiments. In 1645 the king appointed Harvey Dean of Merton College. In June 1646 Oxford was besieged and taken by Cromwell's supporters, and Harvey returned to London.
Little is known about his occupations and circumstances of life over the next few years. In 1646, Harvey published two anatomical essays in Cambridge on Investigations of the circulatory system (Exercitationes duae de circulatione sanguinis), and in 1651 his second fundamental work, Studies on the Origin of Animals (Exercitationes de generatione animalium), was published. It summarized the results of Harvey's many years of research on the embryonic development of invertebrates and vertebrates, and formulated the theory of epigenesis. Harvey argued that the egg is the common origin of all animals and that all living things come from the egg. Harvey's research on embryology served as a powerful stimulus for the development of theoretical and practical obstetrics.
From 1654 Harvey lived in his brother's house in London or in the suburbs of Roehampton. He was elected president of the College of Physicians, but refused this honorary position, citing his advanced age.
Born in Kent (Folkestone) in a relatively wealthy family: his father, Thomas Harvey, was a successful businessman, later the mayor of Folkestone.
William received elementary education at King's College Canterbury. In 1593, the fifteen-year-old Harvey entered the University of Cambridge, winning a scholarship to pay for living expenses and six years of study. For the last two years, the fellow spends some time at universities in France, Germany, Italy to learn more about medical science.
In 1599, twenty-one-year-old William entered the University of Padua, famous for its medical and anatomical courses. Interesting: Galileo Galilei studied there for seven years in mathematics, physics and astronomy. William's teacher and friend was the skilled anatomist and surgeon Hieronymus Fabricius. From him, the young physician learned that an autopsy is the best way to study the human body.
Harvey graduated from the university (1602) with a degree of doctor of medicine. His teacher wrote in his diploma: "William showed such skills, intelligence, memory and qualifications that far exceeded the hopes that our experts had placed in him."
Medical career
In 1602 William returned to England. The University of Cambridge awarded Harvey an M.D., adding to the one he received from Padua. The medic then moves to London to work as a doctor. His career was helped by his marriage to Elizabeth Brown, daughter of the physician Elizabeth I.
Achievements
Harvey made his discoveries because he ignored medical textbooks, preferring his own observations to animal autopsy findings. The doctor said: "I have often wondered and laughed at those who imagined that everything was so virtuously and absolutely investigated by Aristotle, Galen, or someone else with a powerful name, that nothing could be added to their knowledge." In 1628, William Harvey published his masterpiece, Anatomical Studies on the Function of the Heart and the Movement of Blood in Animals. He became the first physician to accurately describe the function of the heart, the circulation of blood throughout the body. His discovery was received with great interest in England and with some skepticism on the Continent, as it disproved many of Galen's claims. Harvey suggested that humans and other mammals reproduce by fertilizing an egg with a sperm cell. It took another two centuries before the "ovum theory" was proven.
The main conclusions of William Harvey on the theory of blood circulation:
- blood circulates through arteries and veins throughout the body;
- circulation is due to constant contractions of the heart;
- blood in different organs and parts of the body has the same origin;
- the circulation mechanism is designed to move fluid, not air;
- the impulse during compression of the ventricle “pushes” the blood into the aorta and further through the arteries;
- blood from the right ventricle goes to the lungs, and then through the pulmonary veins to the left atrium;
- similarly, blood from the left ventricle enters the arteries, and then returns through the veins to the right atrium;
- there is no back and forth movement of blood in the veins, there is a constant flow of blood towards the heart.
Death
William Harvey died in London at the home of one of his brothers. The cause of death was most likely a cerebral hemorrhage. Harvey had no children, and his wife had died earlier. Harvey's grave can be found in the village of Hampstead, in the English county of Essex.
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| British | Brown John Harvey William Jenner Edward Lister Joseph Sydenham Thomas | |
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Another Italian scientist, a professor of anatomy and botany in Pisa, is considered another predecessor of Harvey, who, like Servetus and Colombo, described the transition of blood from the right to the left half of the heart through the lungs. However, unlike the first two, he did not abandon the Galenian doctrine of the seepage of blood through the septa of the heart.
Harvey first presented his understanding of the circulation of the blood, which was preceded by lengthy experimental studies on animals, in a lecture given in London on April 16, 1618. “Blood moves in a circle, or rather two (small - through the lungs and large - through the whole body) circles of blood circulation,” said Harvey. However, he published his work on the understanding of blood circulation only 10 years later in the book Anatomical Study of the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals (Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus). The book was published in 1628 in Germany in Frankfurt am Main. In his book, Harvey refuted Galen's doctrine, which had prevailed for more than one and a half thousand years, about the movement of blood in the body, according to which more and more portions of blood from the organs that produce it come to the heart with each cycle.
Harvey not only formulated the now classical theory of blood circulation for the first time, but also provided experimental evidence in its favor. By measuring the stroke volume, heart rate and total blood volume in the body of a sheep, he proved that in 2 minutes the entire volume of blood passes through its heart, and within 30 minutes the volume of blood passing through the heart is equal to the weight of the animal. It followed from Harvey's experiments that, contrary to Galen's statements, blood returns to the heart in a closed cycle, in which the anatomical connection of arteries and veins is provided by capillaries.
Harvey was not accepted by his contemporaries or the church and was criticized by them. Opponents of the theory of blood circulation (blood circulation) in England called its author an insulting name for a doctor "circulator", which in Latin means "charlatan". They also called all the supporters of the doctrine of blood circulation circulators. It is noteworthy that the Faculty of Medicine of Paris refused to recognize the fact of blood circulation in the human body, and this is 20 years after the discovery of blood circulation! However, Harvey found defenders, the first among whom was the great Descartes. It was he who contributed much to the acceptance of Harvey's discovery by the world.
The most important works of Harvey are considered to be published in 1646 in Cambridge "Investigations of the circulation" (Exercitationes duae de circulatione sanguinis) and in 1651 - "Investigations on the origin of animals" (Exercitationes de generatione animalium).
In 1654, Harvey was elected president of the London College of Medicine, but for health reasons he refused this position. By this time, he began to suffer from severe gouty pains, for which he was even forced to take tincture of opium.
Harvey died suddenly on June 3, 1657. His body was buried in the family vault at Hempstead, Essex, fifty miles northeast of London.
Literaturewww.williamharvey.org
www.princeton.edu
