Michael Servetus (1511 -1553) was a Spanish theologian, physician, and anatomist. He is also known as Miguel Servet, Miguel Serveto, and Michel de Villeneuve. Servetus had studies in a multitude of fields, including catography, mathematics, pharmacology, astronomy, etc. He was born in 1511 in Aragon, Spain. Servetus started his studies in law in 1531and Medicine in 1536, where he excelled as an anatomist. Just as Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey, he clashed with the Galenic vision of anatomy and physiology. He correctly stated the theory of pulmonary circulation, but with no logical proof as Harvey.
Servetus was openly critical of the catholic church, publishing three books that openly questioned the Holy Trinity dogma. Servetus published his findings on pulmonary circulation in a controversial book "Cristianismi Restitutio", where pulmonary circulation was only one of the points he made which were mostly his position on the Holy Trinity and questioning the idea that everyone was predestined, as the catholic church professed at that time. His anatomical views were the least of his problems; because of this open criticism of Galen and the church. Servetus was burnt at the stake in Geneva on October 27, 1553.
Original image courtesy of National Library of Medicine. |
|