William Harvey (1578-1657), English physician. Harvey was born at Folkestone, Kent, and was educated there and at Cambridge and Padua. He is considered the founder of modern physiology for his work on the circulation of the blood. He used dissection and experimentation to demonstrate that blood is circulated around the body by the pumping action of the heart. This contradicted the beliefs of the previous 1300 years, that blood oscillates back and forth in the blood vessels. He published these views in De Mortu Cordis in 1628. He also conducted notable embryological research, proposing that all life forms originate from an egg. He was royal physician to King James I from 1618, and to King Charles I from 1640. This engraving comes from Birch's The Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain published at London in 1747.