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William Harvey (April 1, 1578 - June 3, 1657) was an English medical doctor/physician, who is credited with being the first to correctly describe, in exact detail, the systemic circulation and properties of blood being pumped around the body by the heart. Although Ibn al-Nafis and Michael Servetus had described pulmonary circulation before the time of Harvey, all but three copies of Servetus' manuscript Christianismi Restitutio were destroyed and as a result, the secrets of circulation were lost until Harvey rediscovered them nearly a century later. Harvey travelled widely in the course of his researches, especially to Italy, where he stayed at the Venerable English College in Rome.
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