Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Harvey
PHYSICIAN AND ANATOMIST,
Whose discovery of the circulation of the blood completely revolutionised the science of medicine, was born at Folkstone, 1st April, 1578. He was educated at Canterbury, and at Caius College, Cambridge, subsequently studying medicine and anatomy in the universities of France, Germany, and Italy. On his return to London he became a member of the College of Physicians, and was appointed to deliver the Lumleian lectures at S. Bartholomew's Hospital. It was at this time that he first gave the world a glimpse of his grand discovery, which he himself affirms, first dawned upon him from a study of the valves of the veins, as exhibited by Fabricius ab Aquapendente, his master when at Padua. It was not till 1628, however, that he published his mature views of the subject in the treatise "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis." He acted as physician to James I and Charles I. During the troubles of the civil war his house in London was pillaged and his papers burnt. The second part of his great work treating de Generatione Animalium, etc., was published by Dr. George Ent, another Kentish man (q. v.) in 1651. Before his death, which took place in June 1658, Harvey made over his paternal estate to the College of Physicians, and appointed a stipend for the orator and for the keeper of the Library and Museum. The fame and merits of this good and great man are too conspicuous to be dilated upon. The College of Physicians honoured his memory in 1766 by publishing a splendid edition of his works, with his life in elegant latin by Dr. Lawrence.
[See "Biographia Britannica,"; "Rees's Cyclopædia" Aikins's "Memoirs of Medicine."]