Just like the establishment of Heliocentrism, a big universe system, scientists were severely persecuted by the church forces in the process of establishing a small universe system. Cautious Vesaliua was swallowed up by the thick darkness, and heroic and unyielding Servit died at the stake. Only William? Harvey is a lucky man, although he has also been maliciously attacked by conservative forces. However, Britain was at the height of the Great Revolution. He is not only a scientific revolutionary, but also a political royalist, and a doctor with quiet personality and mild treatment. Therefore, he has never been seriously persecuted by church forces.
This is not only his own luck, but also the luck of science.
1578, William? Harvey was born in a small manor near the sea in Folkstone, Kent, England. Father is a respectable rural gentleman. Harvey is the only child among seven brothers and sisters who chose academic career.
Because Harvey's family is a close and friendly family full of joy, his brothers and sisters have received excellent education. Harvey's quiet and gentle personality was cultivated in this big family. This is very important to Harvey. Harvey's success in science has a lot to do with his personality.
1588, Harvey was sent to a missionary school. /kloc-When he was 0/6 years old, Harvey left his hometown and went to Gassy College of Cambridge University to study Latin and Greek. Because of his excellent grades, he won the scholarship of that year soon after he entered school, and obtained a bachelor of arts degree at the age of 23.
However, Harvey is really interested in medicine. From 65438 to 0597, Harvey came to Italy and studied medicine at the famous University of Padua.
At that time, Padua University was the most famous university in Europe. In this historical period, almost all the major achievements in various fields of natural science have a great relationship with this university. Copernicus, Galileo, Vesaliua and Servit all studied and worked here. Galileo was teaching here when Harvey came.
1602, after two years of hard study, Harvey received his doctorate in Padua. After returning to China, he began to practice medicine in London. Because of his excellent medical skills, he was deeply loved by the local people and soon became a famous doctor. Harvey was not only a famous saint during his stay in London? He is a doctor in bartholomew Hospital, a professor of anatomy at the Doctor Training Institute, and a doctor of French King Charles I..
Although Harvey was busy with his work, he didn't stop his scientific research. He sees a doctor during the day and concentrates on studying anatomy and physiology at night. Harvey was deeply influenced by Copernicus' cosmic system in his scientific concept. He believes that the flow of human blood should move back and forth like the earth moves around the sun.
In order to prove his conjecture, Harvey spent most of his income on anatomy and experimental research. He keeps many animals for dissection and various experiments. Harvey dissected more than 80 different types of animals in the autopsy room. Because he was very careful, he found many new things in the process of dissection. For example, when dissecting the human body, he found that the human heart has a cavity: left and right atria and left and right ventricles, and there is a valve between the atria and ventricles, which only allows blood to flow into the ventricles from the atria, but not back. So Galen thinks that human blood fluctuates like the tide of the sea, which is definitely wrong.
So, how does human blood flow?
It is found from Harvey's manuscript that he put forward a brand-new point of view in an academic speech in 16 16: it is the heartbeat of the heart that keeps the blood circulating forever, just like the pump raises the water pressure, and the heartbeat of the heart keeps the blood flowing through the lungs and into the arteries.
1628, Harvey published his famous theory of heart and blood movement. Harvey put forward a complete theory of blood circulation in this book. The genius of Harvey's research results is that he is the first person to consider the problem from the blood output of the heart during the beating process.
Harvey found a very interesting phenomenon through experimental observation: the total amount of blood pumped by the animal heart per hour is greater than the weight of the whole animal itself. Harvey does anatomical experiments on sheep and dogs. He found that the hearts of sheep and dogs pump out several pounds of blood every minute, so it can be inferred that the hearts of these animals pump out much more blood every half hour than their own weight. Today, as we all know, the blood pumped by the human heart is about 10 pound per minute, which is 600 pounds per hour, far exceeding the human body weight by three times. It is through this quantitative relationship that Harvey draws a profound conclusion: blood must move in the whole body circulation, and this movement is continuous and uninterrupted.
This is Harvey's famous small universe system.
The establishment of Harvey's theory was deeply influenced by Copernicus' cosmic system. We can clearly see the brilliance of Copernicus' theory in his book "On the Movement of Hearts".
Harvey not only deeply realized the important role of the heart in the theory of blood circulation, but also deeply realized that the heart is a "small universe"-the sun in the human blood circulation system. He wrote in The Theory of Heart-Blood Movement: "The heart is the beginning of life, the sun of the small universe ... It nourishes, nourishes and promotes the growth of the whole body, and it is indeed the foundation of life and the source of all activities."
In Harvey's theory of heart blood movement, there is only one problem that has not been completely solved, that is, he has never observed the capillaries connecting arteries and veins. In his experiment, he found that blood is constantly flowing, so there must be some kind of tiny tubule between the artery and the vein, which makes the blood flow become a loop. Unfortunately, when Harvey studied blood circulation, there was no decent microscope at all. Harvey only has one hand-held magnifying glass. There are no capillaries at all. His genius prediction was not confirmed by the microscope until decades later.
Harvey's theory of heart and blood movement is compact in structure and clear in argument, surpassing all previous medical works.
Harvey's "Heart Blood Movement Theory" was not published smoothly. As early as 1626, he and British Secretary of State Francis? Bacon talked about his "theory of mind movement", but Bacon thought it was nonsense. Harvey's book was published in Frankfurt, Germany on 1628, and he didn't publish it on his own initiative. After learning that he had such a novel paper, a German publisher wrote him an enthusiastic letter, in which he wrote, "We don't want to lose an opportunity to let the whole of Europe know your thoughts, and decided to pay all the expenses for publishing The Theory of Heart-Blood Movement." After receiving this letter, Harvey was deeply moved and finally made up his mind to publish this epoch-making book.
We can still see Harvey's worry in his book "On Effort and Movement". He had anticipated that he would be attacked and opposed violently. Harvey wrote in the book: "I want to talk about something new that I have never heard of. I am not only afraid that the suspicion of a few people will be bad for me, but also afraid that all mankind will oppose me ... "But all this did not crush him, and he decided to publish his own book:" But I am serious.
Harvey's worry is not unnecessary. A few weeks after the publication of The Theory of Heartfelt Movement, a wave of opposition to Harvey appeared on the European continent and lasted for ten years. The first person who attacked Harvey was the dean of the Medical College of Paris University, France. The dean was Harvey's good friend, but in order to maintain Galen's theory, he abandoned friendship and took the lead in attacking Harvey. Conservative medical authorities believe that Galen should not be considered wrong at all. Even if the anatomical results are different from what Galen said, it should be admitted that Galen is correct, but Galen's time has passed and nature itself has changed. Other medical theorists also criticized Harvey's argument as "contrary to the facts and ridiculous". Until the middle of 10 century, the conservative medical circles in France still refused to accept Harvey's theory. However, he was not severely criticized in Britain, and all the "heretical" thinkers in Europe accepted his theory.
On the whole, Harvey is lucky. When Harvey was regarded as a heresy by conservative scholars in continental Europe, Britain was in an uproar. People are busy fighting for power and profit, and not many people are willing to chew Harvey's extensive and profound medical works. Coupled with Harvey's gentle and quiet personality, he rarely made enemies, so he was not seriously persecuted in Britain.
In his later years, Harvey devoted himself to embryology. Starting from the phenomenon that birds and reptiles are "developed from eggs", he realized that all viviparous animals are also produced from eggs. 165 1 year, he completed another great medical work, embryology.
Harvey is a revolutionary in medicine, but a royalist in politics. Harvey is not only the physician of Charles I, but also a good friend of the king, so he has always been loyal to the king. During the war between Charles I and Parliament, he always followed the king. Harvey read his medical books under the bushes not far from the battlefield in Cromwell's fierce battle to completely repel the royalist army. Later, the royalists were defeated and Charles I was guillotined, so Harvey returned to the countryside not far from London to continue his medical research.
After Cromwell came to power, the Royal Medical College elected Harvey as the dean of the medical college, but because he was very dissatisfied with the revolution, he refused because he was old. 1654, Harvey became the president of medical college. 1657, Harvey died of illness. Because he lost his wife and didn't raise children in his early years, he donated his property, house and books to the school. To this day, this school holds a commemorative event for Harvey every year.
The establishment of Harvey's blood circulation theory marks that science has entered a new era in two aspects.