I never heard that one. But I've heard of Arnold Ehret, the person who wrote a book on the mucus-less diet, still popular with some raw foodists. (I think by mucus he may have meant protein, which seems like a poor idea for a diet to me, but I haven't read the book.) He had the idea that air pressure expanded the lungs, and then the stretched lung squeezed it back out like a balloon. So breathing happened automatically. And this breathing also pumped the blood; the heart was only a valve.
Another guy was the founder of the Waldorf school and Anthroposophy. Rudolph Steiner. He also thought the heart was only a passive conduit, but i think he believed that the blood moved itself, through vortexes in the liquid.