Michael ServetusBorn 29 Sep 1511; died 27 Oct 1553 at age 42.Spanish physician who lectured on astrology (in which he firmly believed) and defended the botanical views of his friend Leonhard Fuchs. He went to Paris in 1536 to study medicine. At a time of the Protestant Reformation, he also held radical theological views which he published in anonymously in a book (1553) in which he also described the circulation of blood through the lungs. Servetus indicated that the blood came from the heart through the pulmonary artery and back through the pulmonary vein; it did not go through the heart muscle itself. Galen's description was still accepted, and the insight of Servetus was ignored for decades (until extended by Harvey). For his heretical theology, Servetus was burned at the stake by Calvin. |
