HARVEY, WILLIAM

1602 - 1640

Admin history: William Harvey (1578-1657) was born on 1 April 1578 in Folkestone, Kent. In 1598 he traveled to Padua, to study at the most renowned medical school of the time. He studied under Fabricus of Aquapendente, Professor of Anatomy. He graduated on 25 April 1602, before returning to England and graduating MD from Cambridge in the same year. On 5 October 1604 he was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians, and was elected Fellow on 5 June 1607. In February 1608-9 he applied for reversion of the office of physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital, whereupon he produced a recommendation from the King and testimonials from Dr Atkins, President of the Royal College of Physicians, and several senior doctors of the College. He was elected to the reversion, a position equivalent to assistant physician, and worked under Dr Wilkinson. Upon the latter's death in the summer of 1609 Harvey was elected full physician. He became Censor at the College in 1613, and in 1615 was elected Lumleian Lecturer, a role he fulfilled every other year for the next thirty years. He gave his first set of anatomical lectures at the College on 16-18 April 1616. In 1618 Harvey was made physician extraordinary to James I. In 1620 Harvey was appointed by the Royal College of Physicians to watch the proceedings of the surgeons who were moving Parliament in their own interest, and was sent to Cambridge where the university declined to join the College. Harvey was Censor again for the College in 1625 and 1629, was named Elect in 1627, and was Treasurer in 1628 and 1629. In 1628 Harvey published at Frankfurt his discovery of the circulation of the blood, in a book entitled 'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sangiunis in Animalibus'. In his book he described the movement of the blood around the body. The book immediately attracted attention and discussion. He remained heavily involved with the Royal College of Physicians however, regularly attending the comitia, examining applicants for Candidate, and drawing up rules for the library. From 1639 he was the King's chief physician, and in 1642 he left London with the King. In 1645 he was made royal mandate warden of Merton College, Oxford. In July 1651 Harvey built a library for the College. Although he wished to remain anonymous the source of this generous donation soon became known, and in December 1652 the College decided to erect a statue of Harvey. The library was completed in February 1653-4 and handed over to the College with the title deeds and his whole interest in the building. In 1654 he was elected president, but declined on the grounds of his age. He served on the Council, in 1655 and 1656. In 1656 he also resigned his Lumleian lectureship and donated to the College, in perpetuity, his estate at Burmarsh, Kent, and left an endowment to pay for a librarian and the delivery of an annual oration. He died of a stroke on 3 June 1657 at the age of 79. In his honour the Harveian Oration is delivered every year on St Luke's Day. Sources: 'Dictionary of National Biography', vol. XXV, Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee (eds.) (London, 1891) [DNB, 1891, pp.94-99] 'The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 1518-1700', William Munk (London, 1878) [Munk's Roll Vol.I pp.124-46] 'Dictionary of Scientific Biography', vol. VI (New York, 1972) [DSB, 1972, pp.150-62] 'William Harvey: Trailblazer of Scientific Medicine', Rebecca B. Marcus (London, 1965) 'The Life of William Harvey', Geoffrey Keynes (Oxford, 1978)‎