Inventions & Discoveries · Medicine and health

De Motu Cordis

1628 · 17th century · Also known as Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus

De Motu Cordis is William Harvey's treatise on the motion of the heart and blood, first published in 1628, which established that the blood circulates through the body. Treating the heart as a pump and measuring the blood it sends out, Harvey concluded that the same blood keeps returning in a closed circuit, out through the arteries and back by the veins. He had presented the case in lectures by 1616; in 1660 Marcello Malpighi saw blood moving in the capillaries, supplying the missing link in the proof.

De Motu Cordis
Image: Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
1628
Credited to
William Harvey

NoteIbn al-Nafis had described the pulmonary circulation in the 13th century and Michael Servetus in 1553; the complete circulation is Harvey’s.

Built onModern anatomy1543

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). De Motu Cordis. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/de-motu-cordis
MLA
“De Motu Cordis.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/de-motu-cordis. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “De Motu Cordis.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/de-motu-cordis.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘De Motu Cordis’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/de-motu-cordis (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻