History of the heart

In the fourth century B. C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle identified the heart as the most important organ of the body, the first to form according to his observations of chick embryos. It was the seat of intelligence, motion, and sensation -- a hot, dry organ. Aristotle described it as a three-chambered organ that was the center of vitality in the body. Other organs surrounding it (e.g. brain and lungs) simply existed to cool the heart. Erasistratus is best known for his observations based on his numerous dissections of human cadavers. In his understanding of the heart and blood vessels, Erasistratus came very close to working out the circulation of the blood (not actually discovered until William Harvey in the seventeenth century a.d.), but he made some crucial errors. Erasistratus understood that the heart served as a pump, thereby dilating the arteries, and he found and explained the functioning of the heart valves. He theorized that the arteries and veins both spread from the heart, dividing finally into extremely fine capillaries that were invisible to the eye. However, he believed that the liver formed blood and carried it to the right side of the heart, which pumped it into the lungs and from there to the rest of the body's organs. Galen, his most important discovery was that arteries carry blood although he did not discover circulation. He also discovered that blood in arteries and veins are differnt colours. Galen also believed (incorrectly) that blood was continuously being made and used up. Ibn al-Nafis, at the time, was teaching about Galen and his school had held sway for a thousand years. Avicenna studied Galen's writings extensively and embellished them to some extent. In Galen's scheme food in the gut underwent concoction and was transported to the liver where the blood was formed and imbued with natural spirit. The blood then flowed to the right ventricle where some entered the lungs via the pulmonary artery to nourish them, but the remainder of the blood reached the left ventricle through invisible pores in the interventricular septum. Ibn al-Nafis states that there must be small communications between the pulmonary artery and the pulmonary vein. This was an inspired prediction of the existence of the pulmonary capillaries because these were not seen until 400 years later by Marcello Malpighi (16281694). Leonardo's investigations of the heart and circulation began in the 1490s; this anatomical depiction was produced around 1510 while he was based in Milan. Many of da Vinci's heart drawings were made from studies of the organs of oxen and pigs. It was only later in his life that he had access to human organs. This are some of the things he found out: he showed that the heart is indeed a muscle and that it does not warm the blood, he found out that it has four chambers and connected the pulse in the wrist with contraction of the left ventricle, he deduced that eddy currents in the blood flow - created by structures in the main aorta artery - help heart valves to close,he suggested that arteries fur up over a lifetime, creating a health risk. Leeuwenhoek is known to have made over 500 "microscopes," of which fewer than ten have survived to the present day. In basic design, probably all of Leeuwenhoek's instruments -certainly all the ones that are known -- were simply powerful magnifying glasses, not compound microscopes of the type used today. Leeuwenhoek studied his own blood and discovered red and white corpuscles. He studied the blood vessels of animals and discovered the tiny capillaries, from the Latin for hair-like, that carry blood from the arteries to the veins.