The historical significance of the discovery of minar circulation

Abstract

The historiography about the discovery of lung circulation and its historical significance has documented the context of discovery and analysed the intelectual relations and possible influences between the main protagonists: Ibn-an Nafis, Servet, Valverde and Colombo. From them comes the idea of a correction in the Galenian scheme, based on medical assimilation of the anatomical discovery. The present work analyses the historiography of the subject and a significant part of medical literature published between 1553 and 1628, underlining the lack of immediate response to the discovery of minor circulation in anatomy as well as in the model of functioning of the human body. It discusses the theoretical signification and the assimilation and defence of the discovery for who, from the end of the 16th Century, represented the movement of epistemological renaissance which ended with the work of William Harvey.