The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

In 1628, Harvey published his conclusions in a seven-volume series now typically referred to as De Motu Cordis (An Anatomical Account of the Motion of the Heart and Blood) that would upset the very foundations of anatomy and physiology of the heart. The heart, Harvey argued, was a pump that moved blood circuitously through the body—from arteries to veins and back again. These views, he wrote, “pleased some more, others less: some […] calumniated me and laid it to me a crime that I had dared to depart from the precepts and opinions of all anatomists: others desired further explanation of the novelties which they said were both worthy of consideration, and might perchance be found of signal use.”