<ul> <li>This edition includes the following editor&#39;s contextual introduction: <i>William Harvey and the study of blood circulation</i></li></ul><br />First published in 1628, &ldquo;On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals&rdquo; (<i>Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus</i>) is the best-known work of the physician William Harvey, which established the circulation of blood throughout the body.<br />&ldquo;On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals&rdquo; &nbsp;is a landmark in the history of physiology, with Harvey combining observations, experiments, measurements, and hypotheses in an extraordinary fashion to arrive at his doctrine. His work is a model of its kind and had an immediate and far-reaching influence on Harvey&#39;s contemporaries.<br />In his study, Harvey investigated the effect of ligatures on blood flow. The book also argued that blood was pumped around the body in a &quot;<i>double circulation</i>&quot;, where after being returned to the heart, it is recirculated in a closed system to the lungs and back to the heart, where it is returned to the main circulation.<br /><br /><i>&ldquo;On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals&rdquo; was originally published in Latin. It was translated into English by Robert Willis (1799-1878) and published in 1847 by the Sydenham Society.</i>