William Harvey - More Facts On Harvey

More Facts On Harvey

In terms of his personality, information shows that William Harvey was seen as a "...humorous but extremely precise man...", how he was often so immersed in his own thoughts that he would often suffer from insomnia (cured with a simple walk through the house), and how he was always ready for an open and direct conversation. He also loved the darkness, for it is said that it was there where "...he could best contemplate", thus sometimes hiding out in caves. A heavy drinker of coffee, Harvey would walk out combing his hair every morning full of energy and enthusiastic spirit through the fields. We have also come to understand Harvey's somewhat unorthodox method of dealing with his gout, here cited completely: "...his (Harvey's) cure was thus: he would sit with his legs bare...put them into a pail of water till he was almost dead with cold, then betake himself to his stove, and so 'twas gone". Apart from the already mentioned love of literature, Harvey was also an intense and dedicated observer of birds during his free time: several long and detailed passages of citations could be written delineating his observations in such places as the "Pile of Boulders" (a small island in Lancashire), 'Bass Rock' (island of the East Coast of Scotland) and "The Bass" (another Scottish island).

A final allusion to the rules established and followed by the physician throughout his life can be made: general canons which are still followed in hospitals today, they embody a final representation of the man that was, William Harvey.

1. "That none be taken into the Hospital but such as be curable, or but a certain number of such as are curable.
2. That none lurk here for relief only or for slight causes.
3. That the Chirurgions, in all difficult cases or where inward physic may be necessary, shall consult with the Doctor, at the times he sitteth once in the week and then the Surgeon himself relate to the Doctor what he conceiveth of the cure and what he hath done therein.
4. That no Chirurgion or his man do trepan the head, pierce the body, dismember, or do any great operation on the body of any but with the approbation and the direction of the Doctor..."

• William Harvey

• Color Portrait

• William Harvey, after a painting by Cornelius Jansen

• William Harvey

• 1957 William Harvey Soviet Union postage stamp

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. included William Harvey in a list of "The Ten Most Influential People of the Second Millennium" in the World Almanac & Book of Facts.