But it should be remembered that inductive science was in its infancy.

This was the sixteenth, not the nineteenth century, and few men had learned to put implicit confidence in their observations and convictions when opposed to existing doctrines.

The time was at hand, however, when such a man was to make his appearance, and, as in the case of so many revolutionary doctrines in science, this man was an Englishman.

It remained for William Harvey (1578-1657) to solve the great mystery which had puzzled the medical world since the beginning of history; not only to solve it, but to prove his case so conclusively and so simply that for all time his little booklet must he handed down as one of the great masterpieces of lucid and almost faultless demonstration.
Harvey, the son of a prosperous Kentish yeoman, was born at Folkestone.
His education was begun at the grammar-school of Canterbury, and later he became a pensioner of Caius College, Cambridge.

Soon after taking his degree of B.A., at the age of nineteen, he decided upon the profession of medicine, and went to Padua as a pupil of Fabricius and Casserius.
Returning to England at the age of twenty-four, he soon after (1609) obtained the reversion of the post of physician to St.Bartholomew's Hospital, his application being supported by James I.himself.Even at this time he was a popular physician, counting among his patients such men as Francis Bacon.