Clinical Application of Blood Circulation

Timeline

1. 1671–1675Paris and London · Western EuropeFollowing the transfusion experiments of Jean-Baptiste Denis and Richard Lower in the 1660s, fierce debate erupted in the 1670s European medical community over the safety of transfusing animal blood into humans. The French Parliament legislated in 1670 to ban human transfusion experiments, and the Royal Society in Britain also ceased official support around 1675; the controversy indirectly pushed the medical community toward fundamental research on circulatory mechanisms.
2. 1672–1678London · BritainThomas Willis's 1672 De Anima Brutorum combined circulation theory with neurophysiology; Richard Lower's 1669 Tractatus de Corde systematically described blood oxygenation in the heart and lungs. In the 1670s, clinicians began using pulse frequency and rhythm to diagnose circulatory disorders, and venesection was gradually standardized based on circulatory knowledge, marking the transformation of Harvey's theory from anatomical hypothesis to clinical protocol.
3. 1677–1680Medical schools at European universities · EuropeHuygens's pendulum clock (1656) was used by physicians to measure pulse frequency, turning subjective pulse diagnosis into a repeatable quantitative indicator. Around 1677, Thomas Sydenham's method of clinical observation, combined with circulation theory, emphasized the correspondence between surface signs and circulatory state, prompting European medical schools to make circulatory physiology a required part of clinical teaching and accelerating the institutionalized spread of Harvey's legacy in practice.