The life and work of William Harvey

This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood. His enunciation of this in his elegant De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (1628) is of interest because it appeals not merely to anatomical and clinical observation but to quantitative methods. Although this is the work for which Harvey is best remembered he also did important work on the formation of the embryo and expounded the theory of epigenesis.