Amatus Lusitanus

João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco, better known as Amato Lusitano and Amatus Lusitanus (1511–1568), was a notable Portuguese Jewish physician of the 16th century.

Like Herophilus, Galen, Ibn al-Nafis, Michael Servetus, Realdo Colombo and William Harvey, he is credited as making a discovery in the circulation of the blood.

In 1546, Amato was in Ferrara, at whose University he taught anatomy as an assistant to the physician Giambattista Canano and delivered lectures on medicinal plants.

During one lecture, he dissected twelve cadavers — a great innovation at that time — in the presence of many scholars, among whom was the anatomist Jean Baptiste Cananus, who through his experience on this occasion was wrongly credited with the discovery of the function of the valves in the circulation of the blood.

During his sojourn in Ferrara, which lasted for six years, Amatus Lusitanus received an invitation from the King of Poland to move to that country, which he declined, preferring to settle in Ancona, where religious tolerance existed.

This work, in seven volumes, entitled Curationum Medicinalium Centuriæ Septem, passed through a number of editions (Florence, 1551; Venice, 1552, 1557, 1560, 1653; Basel, 1556; Leyden, 1560, 1570; Paris, 1620; Bordeaux, 1620; Barcelona, 1628).