Customer Reviews
Excellent book on the English Renaissance. 
2008-04-06
This sturdy, hardcover book is 140 pages long, and generously illustrated with some 37 black and white pictures, quarter page, half page, and full page. This is not a kid's book. It is suitable for the older teenager and for adults.
We learn about the social milieu existing at the time of William Harvey. We learn about Harvey's education, his teachers, the works of other physiologists, and we learn about his detractors.
While the book does disclose elements of the physiology and anatomy of the circulatory system, if your goal is to learn these things, it is best to look elsewhere. I recommend the following:
If you want to learn about the physiology of the heart, you should use the internet, and go to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)), and view their narrated motion pictures of the pulmonary circulation, and of the electrical impulses from the SA node and AV node. Once you have consulted this cartoon at the NIH web site, you should have an easier time with Jole Shackelford's book.
Most interesting, is the book's disclosure of earlier (incorrect and largely speculative) thoughts about heart physiology, which were replaced by William Harvey's correct thoughts. Here are some examples:
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM. Galen of Pergamon thought that venous blood and arterial blood were totally separate and never mixed. Harvey discovered that they were the same blood, and that there was only one circulatory system. Ancient Greeks thought that the heart provided heat to the blood. Ancient Greeks thought that the liver provided blood with nutrients, and the purpose of veins was to come out of the liver, and deliver nutrients throughout the body. They also thought that the purpose of the lungs was to cool down the blood, in case the heart made it too hot (p. 46).
Harvey based his argument on the circulatory system on this type of calculation: The amount of blood coming out the heart in one hour is ten times the volume of the entire body (p. 62), and that no amount of metabolism could possibly be consuming this amount of blood. Therefore, there must be a means to re-circulate the blood.
WHY DOES BLOOD FLOW TO THE HEART. Galen thought that blood was naturally attracted to the heart, just like objects naturally fall because of gravity. But Harvey showed that blood flowed to the heart, because the heart pumped it around in a circuit.
THE HEART HEATS THE BLOOD. Descartes, a contemporary of Harvey, thought that the heart heated the blood to the point that it vaporized, and that in coming back to the heart through the veins, the blood condensed in the veins (p. 108). The book points out that Descartes' view was a hybrid of William Harvey's view and the view of the ancient Greeks.
PULMONARY CIRCULATION. Michael Servetus discovered pulmonary circulation, but there were only 3 copies of his manuscript, and so William Harvey re-discovered the pulmonary circulation, and thus Harvey receives the credit for the discovery. Harvey described the circulatory system as 2 loops, consisting of the pulmonary circulation and the systemic circulation.
VALVES IN VEINS. Hieronymus Fabricus (Harvey's teacher) thought that the valves regulated the RATE (slow v. fast) of blood flow, but Harvey showed that the valves regulated the DIRECTION of blood flow, and not the rate. Evidence for the function of valves came from experiments with a tourniquet. Also, we learn that Harvey pushed a metal rod (or blowing air) through a vein, and found it could be pushed in only one direction (p. 63, p. 120). Also, the little bumps in veins are valves (p. 66).
HEARTBEAT. It was earlier thought that the heartbeat came from the heart bonking against the chest when the heart expanded (p. 54). But the real reason for the heartbeat is the sound of the valves slamming shut.
CAPILLARIES. One reason why some people did not believe Harvey's idea of the circulatory system was that there were no visible connections between arteries and veins. The book (p. 120) tells us that Macello Malpighi solved the problem in 1660, when he used a microscope to discover capillaries.
To conclude, the book is a great source of inspiration, as a starting point, to delve into other books and articles that focus more on what actually is known about the physiology of the circulatory system. In other words, once you know that (at one time) it was thought that the purpose of the heart was to heat the blood, and that the purpose of the lungs was to cool the blood (in case it got over-heated), one can derive much more enjoyment from typical books on heart physiology.
For example, I recommend the article by: Sanchez-Quintana, Cabrera, Farre, Climent, Anderson, and Ho (2005) Heart 91:189-194, which discloses a dandy picture of the SA node, showing that it has a crescent shape. Also, I recommend the article by Cho, Takano, and Noma (2003) J. Physiol. 1:169-180, which shows that an isolated cell from the SA node possesses the ability to make an electronic pulse.
Again, it must be emphasized that this book is not for kids. It is for adults, and perhaps for advanced teenagers. The book is part of a series of some 25 scientists, e.g., Alexander Graham Bell, Copernicus, Marie Curie, Michael Faraday, Johannes Kepler, and others, all from Oxford University Press.
