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Harvey was born in 1578 and studied medicine at Padua. He returned to London and worked as a lecturer in anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons. From 1618 he was appointed physician to James I and Charles I. Through careful observation Harvey concluded that blood was pumped around the body in a circular motion by the heart. Harvey shared his findings in his most famous work "On the Motion of the Heart”. As Harvey's theory was partly theoretical, he carefully observed cold blooded amphibians as their heart rates were slower. This meant he could observe blood being pumped through the body by the heart. His work proved Galen was incorrect in concluding the liver created blood. Harvey instead proved there was a fixed amount of blood in the body and the heart worked as a pump, sending the blood around the body in a one way flow. Many doctors of the time rejected Harvey's findings, preferring to still follow Galen's work. Despite proving Galen wrong and his careful, scientific & observational approach to his work, his findings were not immediately useful. Blood letting continued until 1800's as doctors still believed Galen's conclusion that the liver created the blood. It was decades before medical students were taught about Harvey's ideas. Blood transfusions could occur with the discovery of blood groups in 1901. Heart transplants and other surgery can only occur now due to Harvey's original research on blood circulation.