Circulation by Thomas Wright is the 2012 Wellcome Trust Book Prize winner

The £25,000 prize celebrating medicine in literature has been won by an account of the first scientist to describe how blood circulates round the human body

Thomas Wright's Circulation (Chatto & Windus) is a biography of William Harvey, the 17th-century scientist who discovered the circulation of the blood.

Chair of judges Mark Lawson described Circulation as: 'A book that combines scholarly science with such narrative excitement that it will be a great surprise if we do not eventually see 'Circulation: The Movie'. The book itself deserves the widest possible circulation.'

The annual Wellcome Trust Book Prize may be awarded to a work of fiction or non-fiction.

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