I have myself, in my dissections, seen the blood flow from the right ventricle into the pulmonary artery, and from the pulmonary vein into the left auricle.
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"Nature is nowhere accustomed more openly to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows traces of her workings apart from the beaten path."
"The blood, in truth, is the fountain of life, the first to move and the last to rest."
"The heart is the beginning of life; the sun of the microcosm."
"The knowledge of man is the knowledge of God."
"The examination of the body after death is a most useful and necessary practice."
English physician whose On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (1628) demonstrated blood circulation, overturning 1,400 years of Galenic medicine. Closely associated with Francis Bacon (his contemporary in the new English empiricism). For an intellectual contrast, see Galenic medicine, the 2nd-century Greek medical tradition (humors, blood-as-consumed-fuel) — Harvey calculated that the heart pumps more blood per hour than the body could possibly produce as fuel — a single quantitative observation that demolished the entire Galenic-Aristotelian medical worldview. The cleanest example in medical history of arithmetic disproving 14 centuries of authority.
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Harvey is reporting direct observational evidence: he personally watched blood move from the heart's right chamber into the lung artery, and from the lung vein into the heart's left chamber. He is asserting that knowledge comes from what you can see with your own eyes during careful examination, not from inherited texts or theoretical assumptions.
Harvey built his entire career on systematic dissection and direct observation, rejecting Galen's 1,400-year-old anatomical authority. His 1628 work De Motu Cordis proved blood circulates continuously, a discovery only possible because he trusted empirical evidence over tradition. This quote captures his empiricist method: see it yourself, then claim it.
In early 17th-century Europe, Galenic medicine still dominated universities and challenging it was professionally dangerous. The Scientific Revolution was underway — Galileo, Kepler, and Vesalius had begun dismantling ancient authority. Harvey's insistence on personal anatomical observation placed him at the forefront of this shift from scholastic deference to empirical natural philosophy.
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