William Harvey was also an intense and dedicated observer of birds during his free time: several long and detailed passages of citations could be written delineating his observations in such places as the "Pile of Boulders" (a small island in Lancashire) and 'Bass Rock' (island off the East Coast of Scotland). William Harvey William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician who made seminal contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped to the brain and body by the
Pulmonary circulation precise role of the lungs. The next addition to the human understanding of pulmonary circulation came with the Ancient Greeks. The physician Alcmaeon (520 - 450 BCE) proposed that the brain, not the heart, was the connection point for all of the vessels in the body. He believed that the function of these vessels was to bring the spirit (pneuma) and air to the brain. Empedocles (492 - 432 BCE), a philosopher, proposed a series of pipes impermeable to blood but continuous with blood vessels which carried the pneuma throughout the body. He proposed that this spirit was internalized with