William Harvey — "The circulation of the blood is a new thing, never before heard of, or at least …"
The circulation of the blood is a new thing, never before heard of, or at least not truly understood.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from William Harvey
"The blood in the animal body is impelled in a circle, and is in a state of ceaseless motion."
"The blood in the veins moves towards the heart, not away from it."
"The physician's art is to imitate nature."
"The animal's heart is the basis of its life, its chief member, the sun of its microcosm; on the heart all its activity depends, from the heart all its liveliness and strength arise. Equally is the kin…"
"Nature is the best teacher."
About William Harvey (1578-1657)
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.
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Harvey asserts that the continuous circular movement of blood through the body—pumped by the heart, traveling through arteries and returning via veins—was genuinely unknown before his work. He isn't boasting carelessly; he acknowledges others speculated, but insists nobody grasped the full mechanical reality of closed circulatory flow until his systematic experiments demonstrated it beyond reasonable doubt.
Relevance to William Harvey
Harvey spent over a decade dissecting animals, timing heartbeats, and ligating vessels before publishing De Motu Cordis in 1628. His quantitative argument—the heart pumps too much blood per hour to be consumed, so it must recirculate—overturned Galenic medicine he was trained in. This quote captures his careful confidence: revolutionary yet measured, empiricist over dogmatist.
The era
In early 17th-century Europe, Galenic humoral theory dominated medicine for over 1,400 years, teaching that blood was continuously produced in the liver and consumed by tissues. Harvey's claim struck at foundational medical authority during a period when Vesalius had already challenged anatomical orthodoxy. The Scientific Revolution was redefining knowledge through observation, making Harvey's experimental approach both radical and timely.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].