Mayow, a member of a well-established family in Cornwall, studied at Oxford from which he received a bachelor's degree in 1665 and a doctorate in civil law in 1670. He also studied medicine, and although he received no degree in the field, Mayow entered medical practice for a short time after leaving Oxford. He spent much of the 1670s in London where he became acquainted with Robert Hooke, who recommended Mayow's election as fellow of the Royal Society in 1678.

From the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth century scholars have debated Mayow's contributions to science. Oxford printed his first publication, Tractatus duo in 1668. These two short tracts addressed respiration and rickets, medical issues of the day. "De respiratione" cited his English contemporaries, Robert Boyle, Nathaniel Highmore, and Thomas Willis and the Italian Marcello Malpighi and included references to experiments on respiration by Robert Hooke and Richard Lower. Some scholars...