William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood

Geoffrey Keynes describes how the reception accorded to Harvey’s great book in 1628 proved him to have a creative genius that could leap ahead of his contemporaries.

Image of veins from Harvey's Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in AnimalibusIf ever a book of outstanding importance to mankind crept quietly into the world, it surely was Harvey’s Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus, published at Frankfort in 1628, when its author was fifty years of age.

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