Anatomical Studies on the Motion of the Heart and Blood by William Harvey, translated by Chauncey D Leake

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Foxing marks on foredges. Dust jacket is in fair condition with tears at the spine top, foxing and sunning. Body text and binding are still very good.

Anatomical Studies on the Motion of the Heart and Blood (originally published in Latin as Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus) is a groundbreaking medical treatise written by English physician William Harvey and published in 1628.

Widely considered one of the most pivotal works in the history of medicine, this is the third edition of a modernised, accessible translation of Harvey's original text spanning all 17 chapters. The book fundamentally transformed the scientific understanding of human physiology by proving that blood circulates through the body in a closed loop pumped entirely by the heart.

Published in 1949 and translated by pharmacologist and historian Chauncey D. Leake, this book includes comprehensive introductory essays and footnotes by Leake that contextualise Harvey's breakthrough against Galen's 1,500-year-old medical misconceptions.

This edition also features replicated versions of the original 17th-century anatomical diagrams—most notably the famous woodcut illustrations of human forearms demonstrating how venous valves direct blood flow exclusively back to the heart.