University of Padua to study medicine. Although Harvey discovered the mechanism of circulation in 1615, he waited thirteen years before publishing his results. He feared for his safety; challenging Galenic dogma was considered sacrilegious. He might have been worried that he’d suffer the same fate as Michael Servetus, a theologian who was burned at the stake in Geneva at the age of forty-two, in part for promoting the idea that blood passes through the lungs.
