In response to a number of requests to have a medical refresher course, Dr. James W. Crane and others founded the Harvey club in 1919, at the end of the first World War.

[1] Annual dinner meetings were held initially at Tecumseh house in London, Ontario, where members would present papers.

[2] The club was named after William Harvey, renowned English physician and physiologist, famous for the detailed description of the systemic circulation as a closed circuit.

The Royal College of Physicians of London holds an annual lecture, established by William Harvey in 1656, called the Harveian Oration.

The Harvey Society, founded in 1905, is based in New York City and hosts an annual lecture series on recent advances in biomedical sciences.