ohn Wallis was born at Ashford on November 22, 1616, and died at Oxford on October 28, 1703. He was educated at Felstead school, and one day in his holidays, when fifteen years old, he happened to see a book of arithmetic in the hands of his brother; struck with curiosity at the odd signs and symbols in it he borrowed the book, and in a fortnight, with his brother's help, had mastered the subject. As it was intended that he should be a doctor, he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, while there he kept an ``act'' on the doctrine of the circulation of the blood; that was said to have been the first occasion in Europe on which this theory was publicly maintained in a disputation. His interests, however, centred on mathematics.
He was elected to a fellowship at Queens' College, Cambridge, and subsequently took orders, but on the whole adhered to the Puritan party, to whom he rendered great assistance in deciphering the royalist despatches. He, however, joined the moderate Presbyterians in signing