*Heartaches – Al Bowlly, Sid Phillips & His Melodians plays*

The Great Forgetting. William Harvey’s De motu cordis arguably defines the history of circulation. The annals of cardiovascular medicine are filled with descriptions of his demonstration of the one-way flow of blood. Harvey is praised as the ‘father’ of circulation. But is he the ‘father’? History is plagued by a phenomenon known as The Great Forgetting. De motu cordis was built upon thousands of years of work spanning multiple continents, yet we only remember one man. What if I told you Harvey’s greatest influence may have been a man forgotten by history? One who lived 300 years before him and 3000 miles away. I want to tell you the untold history of circulation. The stories of European physicians who laid the groundwork for Harvey’s discovery. The stories of the Charaka Samhita and the Huangdi Neijing, ancient texts on circulation that have been lost to time. And the story of Ibn al-Nafis, perhaps the true ‘father’ of circulation.

*European Son – The Velvet Underground, Nico plays*

Greece. Circa 300 BC. Erasistratus was one of the earliest Europeans relevant to the history of circulation. His model was rudimentary: arteries only carried air, veins carried blood, and they never met. But the precedent it set would stand for 500 years, until one man changed everything. Galen, 129 – 210 AD, is best known for humoral theory, but his forgotten contributions to circulation are equally important. Using Aristotelian logic, he deduced that not only did arteries contain both blood and air, but also that arteries and veins exchanged blood, which he believed happened in the heart. Galen’s model wasn’t perfect – 1400 years later, Michael Servetus would correct Galen by proposing that this exchange happened in the lungs, not the heart, suspiciously without any evidence. But Galen was close. Close enough to make the contributions of Servetus and even Harvey seem minute. The history of circulation in Europe spans millennia filled with trans-historical exchange. Harvey wasn’t the first to describe circulation – far from it. He wasn’t even the last – Marcello Malpighi would later perfect Harvey’s model by discovering capillaries. But The Great Forgetting misleads us, makes us forget that Harvey stood on the shoulders of giants.

*Al Ouf Mash’al – Sharq plays*

Ibn al-Nafis, the forgotten ‘father’, was an Arabic physician born into the Islamic Golden Age, a time of marked scientific prosperity for the Middle East. His model of circulation was robust: arteries carried both blood and air, veins carried blood, and they exchanged blood in the lungs. Familiar, right? Ibn al-Nafis’s model was a replica of Servetus’s with one exception: it was three centuries older. Servetus, whose work brought Europe out of a dark age in the history of circulation, who inspired De motu cordis, who some consider the ‘father’ of circulation was unoriginal, maybe even a plagiarist. Recall Servetus’s lack of evidence. Some historians believe trans-local exchange from Ibn al-Nafis to Servetus explains this, which would make Ibn al-Nafis the actual catalyst for De motu cordis. With this in mind, it may seem reasonable to name him the ‘father’ of circulation, but don’t let The Great Forgetting lead you astray. Ibn al-Nafis, like most other physicians during the Islamic Golden Age, studied the Galenic tradition. His contributions were no less influenced than Harvey’s and he is no more a ‘father’. To know the history of circulation, you must know Ibn al-Nafis. Remember him.

*Kuzhaloodhi – Sowmya plays*

In the time we have left, I would like to briefly talk about the Charaka Samhita and the Huangdi Neijing. Written by Agnivesha Tantra, the Charaka Samhita was a foundational text in Ayurvedic medicine. It describes circulation as air following blood throughout the body in a circular fashion, an incomplete model, but complete enough for when it was published, around 100 BC. So, why was it forgotten? The Charaka Samhita was written in Sanskrit, a language known only in India. Perhaps The Great Forgetting is biased, biased against texts that don’t reach the right people, the right people being Europeans. The story of the Huangdi Neijing is no different. Its traditional Chinese text and focus on acupuncture were unappealing to Europeans and it was forgotten, despite its detailed discussions on circulation. I tell you these stories as a cautionary tale. The history of circulation I have presented to you is incomplete. The Charaka Samhita and the Huangdi Neijing were preserved due to their influence in their respective countries, but there may be histories that have been forever erased by The Great Forgetting.

History is alive. The Great Forgetting ensures that there will always be something we are missing and as we correct for that, history changes. Today, I have presented one version of the history of circulation. It isn’t perfect. It’s filled with lies, omissions, and things we have forgotten. But it reveals more than claiming one man to be the ‘father’ of circulation. Strive for a better history and remember The Great Forgetting is not so greatish.

*Call It Fate, Call It Karma – The Strokes plays*

 

References

Aird, W. C. “Discovery of the Cardiovascular System: from Galen to William Harvey.” Wiley Online Library, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 22 July 2011, www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1538-7836.2011.04312.x.

Akmal, M, et al. “Ibn Nafis – a Forgotten Genius in the Discovery of Pulmonary Blood Circulation.” Heart Views : the Official Journal of the Gulf Heart Association, Medknow Publications, Mar. 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964710/.

Azizi, Mohammad-Hossein et al. “A brief history of the discovery of the circulation of blood in the human body.” Archives of Iranian medicine vol. 11,3 (2008): 345-50.

Caraka. Charaka-Samhita : Translated into English. Calcutta :Avinash Chandra Kaviratna, 18901914.

Chapters 1-34 translated from the Chinese with an introductory study by Ilza Veith. Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine. Berkeley :University of California Press, 1966.

Harvey, William, 1578-1657. The Anatomical Exercises : De Motu Cordis and De Circulatione Sanguinis, in English Translation. New York :Dover Publications, 1995.

Patwardhan, Kishor, et al. “The History of the Discovery of Blood Circulation: Unrecognized Contributions of Ayurveda Masters.” Advances in Physiology Education, 1 June 2012, www.journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/advan.00123.2011.

West, John B. “Ibn Al-Nafis, the Pulmonary Circulation, and the Islamic Golden Age.” Journal of Applied Physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985), American Physiological Society, Dec. 2008, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2612469/.