Romley: The Laurence Papyrus, a manuscript on the circulation of blood, was made about 1700 B.C. However, the text is in a language that had not been in common use since 2700 B.C. So the Laurence Papyrus must be a copy of an older manuscript, and the understanding of circulation must date to at least 2700 B.C. Vargas: Not necessarily. In 1628 William Harvey published his investigations of the circulation of blood in a by-then-dead language, Latin.