William Harvey: Discoverer of How Blood Circulates (Great Minds of Science) [Library Binding]

The book is 128 pages long, with 25 full-page black and white illustrations. One of the illustrations is a map of England (I love maps) and another is a photograph of present-day Folkestone, William Harvey's hometown. Also, as might be expected, we find many old drawings from the 1600s.

CONTEXT. The book is easy to understand for a number of reasons. These reasons include the disclosure of the context of various events, use of short sentences, and use of very short sentences. The author is careful to provide the reader with the temporal context (what happened before; what happened after) for various events and facts. For example, in describing William Harvey's hometown, Folkestone, the author tells us that large ships had once sailed in its harbor, but later on sand made the harbor too shallow (page 11). We learn where Harvey went to school. Most authors would have been content to inform us that the school was "Gonville and Caius College." However, Lisa Yount goes a step further, and tells us what had occurred at an earlier time--"Caius" was added to the name when John Caius, a physician, donated money to the college (page 13).

VALVES IN VEINS. Most important, and central to any book on William Harvey, is the temporal contexts of his discoveries. For example, we learn that Harvey's teacher, Fabricus, believed that the purpose of valves (in veins) was to regulate the rate of blood flow (faster; slower) (pages 18-20, 54-57). We learn that years later, Harvey discovered that valves actually regulate the direction, not the rate, of blood flow (pages 54-57).

PULMONARY CIRCULATION. We learn that, at an earlier time, it was believed that blood moved from the right side of the heart to the left side, by way of invisible pores (page 47). In contrast, we learn that Harvey discovered that the true passageway was via the pulmonary circulation (pages 48-50).

A SIMPLE CALCULATION. We learn a technique used by Harvey to persuade others of the existence of the circulatory system. In hindsight, this technique seems very simple. At an earlier time, it was thought that the purpose of the heart was to add "vital spirit," and that after leaving the heart, the blood was used up (page 51). In contrast, Harvey calculated that if this notion was true, the body would have to create 1000 pounds of new blood per hour (pages 52-53).

TINY SENTENCES ADD EMPHASIS. Another reason why Lisa Yount's book is easy to understand, is its occasional use of tiny sentences. Describing William Harvey's hometown, the author writes, "It was a small coastal town." (page 10) Contrasting atria with ventricles, the author writes, "They do different things." (page 45). This "tiny sentence" technique is not used all the time, and is not used arbitrarily. It is used only here and there, to add emphasis, almost like a form of punctuation.

HUMAN INTEREST. Lisa Yount provides some human interest commentary. For example, she writes, "Most people of Harvey's time believed in witches . . . an eleven year old boy in Lancashire told a strange tale. He said he had been kidnapped by a witch . . . Harvey and other doctors examined the accused witches and found nothing unnatural about them." (pages 66-68). Page 67 shows a full-page illustration, from 1659, of a witch.

(It might be interesting to know if this is the same Lancashire as in the Beatles' song, A DAY IN THE LIFE ("I read the news today, oh boy. Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And though the holes were rather small. They had to count them all").

Fortunately, the author never goes so far as to introduce fictional writing. For example, the author never writes things like, "One cold and stormy night, William Harvey trudged through the snow on the way to an anatomy lesson, but his thoughts were not on his studies. Instead, he was dreaming about the lovely Elizabeth Browne, a fetching lass with an even more fetching dowry." We do, in fact, learn about Elizabeth Browne, but here the author provides us with a quotation about Harvey's wife from one of Harvey's books (pages 24-25). FIVE STARS.

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