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400 BCE
Hippocrates offers the first sophisticated reasoning that nourishment must be distributed from intestines to all parts of the body
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384 BCE
Aristotle concludes that the heart is the center of the physiological mechanism and that it is the source of all blood
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340 BCE
Praxagoras differentiated between arteries and veins. He proposed that arteries carry pneuma from the heart while veins originate in the liver.
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300 BCE
Herophilus recognizes that arteries have thicker walls than veins.
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250 BCE
Erasistratus considers the heart to be the source of both veins and arteries
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Period: 162 to 216
Galen works as Physician to the Emperor and becomes the leading medical authority at the time. Two books are published with attacks on Erasistratus.
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Jan 1, 1200
Ibn al-Nafis of Damascus provides the first description of the pulmonary circuit, but it is not translated into Latin until 1547
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Jan 1, 1530
Andreas Vesalius begins to point out errors in Galen's work after completing his own dissections.
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Jan 1, 1559
Renaldo Colombo's observations about the pulmonary circuit are published in a posthumous publication
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Jan 1, 1571
Andrea Cesalpino confirms the existence of the pulmonary circuit
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Jan 1, 1574
Girolamo Fabrizio identifies veinous valves
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Fabrizio publishes a description of veinous valves
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William Harvey publishes "Exercitattio de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis", or "An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals"
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Joannes Riolanus attempts to replace Harvey's doctrine with his own theory in "Encheiridium Anatomicum".
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Harvey publishes two rebuttals to his critics, addressing them to Riolanus.
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Malpighi discovers capillaries in the body, bringing some end to the controversy