A LETTER OF FRANCESCO REDI Concerning Some Objections made upon his OBSERVATIONS About VIPERS Written to Monsieur BOURDELOT Abbot and Lord of Conde and S t. Leger And Monsieur ALEXANDER MORVS Printed in Italian at Florence 1670. Now made English Together with The SEQUEL of NEW EXPERIMENTS upon VIPERS and a Dissertation upon their Poyson Serving for a Reply to a Letter written by Signor Francisco Redi to M. Bourdelot and M. Morus Written in French by Moyse Charas Now likewise Englished LONDON Printed by T. R. for John Martyn Printer to the Royal Society at the Bell in S. Pauls Churchyard 1673. A LETTER OF FRANCESCO REDI Concerning some Objections made upon his Observations about Vipers Written to Monsieur BOURDELOT AND Monsieur ALEXANDER MORUS SIRS FROM your liberality I have received the Book entituled NEW EXPERIMENTS upon VIPERS learnedly composed by those noble Virtuosi who during some months had met in the House of M. Charas for that purpose I have read it over more then once with great contentment plainly finding that those Worthy persons have not scrupled by their eminent labours to confirm the Truth of those Observations which I also had made touching VIPERS until the year 1664. And indeed I think my self much obliged to their ingenuity and do frankly acknowledge that whatever worth that rude and plain piece of mine may have it hath received it from the honourable testimonies given to it in France where all the excellent Sciences and Arts do highly florish to the admiration of those that profess them in the other parts of Europe I intreat you Sirs that you would do me the favour to represent upon occasion these my candid and cordial sentiments and withall to declare the high esteem I have for that Book the authority of which is so venerable with me that having found therein some few things directly contrary to my own Experiments I have often doubted of my self and been almost ready to believe that I dream'd when I made and when I wrote them But some of my Learned Friends that were frequently present at those my Operations have laughed at me for that proneness of my belief and between jest and earnest assur'd me that those Experiments had by no means so succeeded with me in a dream Notwithstanding which without any regard to their asseverations I resolved to iterate and reiterate them and that with so great and careful diligence that I should greatly injure my self and Truth if I should not freely and candidly tell you that all those four or five Experiments which to those Gentlemen in France have not succeded do succeed with me in Italy without fail as they were formerly recorded by me on the contrary those will not succeed with me that have been made in France and are contrary to mine And since you may perhaps have the curiosity as to desire to know of what kind they are I shall here give you a brief account of them assuring my self that it will be acceptable to all the Lovers of Truth but especially to the Authors of the Book of the New Experiments who have been induced to write by no other motive then the sole desire either to confirm or to find the Truth of a matter so curious of which so many understanding men have written In my Letter then of the Observations about Vipers addressed to the Illustrious Lorenzo Magalotti speaking of the Poison of those creatures both what it is and in what part of the Body it resideth I affirm'd as I affirm still that the Poison of a Viper is nothing else then a certain yellowish liquor which lodgeth in the vesicles that cover the greatest teeth of the Viper and that that Juice is not only poisonous when it is ejected by the live Viper when she biteth but also when 't is collected from a dead Viper and even such an one that hath been dead many days provided it be made to pass into a wound and remain there Moreover I added that this same liquor when taken down into the stomach is not deadly no not so much as noxious And this was my opinion which hath been confirm'd to me by innumerable Experiments made with the greatest exactness I could employ But the Authors of the Book of the New Experiments do resolutely write That that above mention'd Liquor is not poisonous but a meer and a most innocent Saliva or Spitle Thence they go on to affirm for an undoubted and experimented Truth that the Viper hath no part of her body neither limb nor humor able to poison and that all her poison consists in the sole imagination of the Viper irritated and made angry by the Idea of vengeance which she hath conceived in her head by the means whereof the spirits being put into a violent motion are darted through the Nerves and at times through the Fibres of the cavities of the Teeth by which cavities those spirits are carried to infect the blood of the animal by the opening made with the biting teeth In short they conclude that if a Viper be not angry and have not that vindicative imagination her bitings do never poison but are very innocent causing no mischief at all to him in whom they are made For these are their words Pag. 36. in the English Version These considerations supported by many Experiments made by Us and to be related hereafter have induced me to call these GlandsSalival and to ascribe to them the very source of that yellow liquor which hath been so much decried and withal so little known and it nothing else but a pure and a very innocent Spitle I hope that those who shall take the pains of examining after me these Glands and this Juyce of the Gums will not stick to give me their suffrages Item p. 105. 106. But not to stay upon principles so slightly established and ill maintain'd for asmuch as we have on our side a great number of Experiments upon which we are grounded We say that this Juice is nothing but a pure and plain Saliva of which we have already observed the use and that this Juice contributes nothing to the venomousness of the Biting since being tasted and swallowed as we have often experimented it doth no hurt to man or beast and since also being put upon open wounds and upon incisions made in the flesh the same being rub'd therewith and mingled with the blood it annoys nothing at all notwithstanding the judgment of a Person very intelligent and particularly in this subject of Vipers who assures to have made a great number of Experiments which being contrary to ours the great opinion we have of the abilities and the sincerity of that famous man hath obliged us to employ the more care and exactness and to confirm our selves by a very great number of Experiments which have alwayes been found alike in the truth we here assert and of which we shall make evident and irrefragable proof Item p. cog We conclude therefore that the imagination
wounds of eight Turtle-doves all which died in the space of half an hour In the month of June having killed many other Vipers and gather'd out of the bags of their teeth and their gums all the yellow and viscous Juice that was there I anointed therewith some beesom-rods sharpn'd like arrowes and immediately I pricked with them ten young Pigeons in the more fleshy part of their chest leaving them fixed in the wound and the Pigeons survived not above two or three hours But lest it should be doubted whether these Pigeons died not of the wound it self enraged by the punctures of those rods I made a trial upon four other Pigeons with rods not infected with that poysonous liquor but none of them dyed though the wounds became purulent I also took eight heads of Vipers cut off six hours before and the Vipers being quite dead I caused eight Turtle-doves to be bitten by them in the thigh and not one of them escaped Moreover I made the heads of fifteen Vipers to be cut off and put them into a glass-vessel well cover'd having laid them upon one another that so they might remain moist Four dayes after I struck with those heads five young Cocks and five great Pigeons in the thigh and they all after a little while died The like fell out with other Viper-heads which having been killed six dayes before had in all likely hood lost all choller and thoughts of revenge And to prevent all Objections that might be raised on this occasion I shall not omit to relate to you that about the beginning of August when two of my Vipers that alone were left me in a box died of themselves of sickness I caused two Turtle-doves to be struck by them which also like the former dyed in less than an hours time But I may go further I had collected in a glass all the poisonous liquor of the heads of two hundred and fifty Vipers to make various Experiments therewith upon occasion But being by much business hindred I delayed to accomplish my design Whence that liquor turn't first into a glew colour'd like amber then in 30 dayes it became altogether dry and friable so that it could easily be reduced to powder Being pulverised I had a mind to try whether that powder let into a wound did keep the force of poysoning and I found that really it did so all those Pullets Pigeons and Turtle-doves into the wounds of which I had put some thereof dying of it in a little while Having made this Experiment I began to doubt whether that poyson of the arrowes of the King of Macassar in the Island of Celebes which commonly are called the arrowes of Bantam in Java Major were not the poyson extracted out of the mouth of some Viper or of some other Viper-like serpent and perhaps of a more maligne nature because of the diversity of the Climate I am not much averse from believing this to be so and it may be confirmed by what I have read in Pliny viz. That the Scythians did infect their Arrows with a Viperin poison His words are Scythae sagittas tingunt Viperinâ sanie humano sanguine irremediabile id scelus mortem illicò levi tactu assert And this was perhaps extracted by Pliny out of Aristotle who in hâ—s Book intitul'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 soon after describeth the process of preparing it which I dare not affirm to be the true one or to requiâ—e so many circumstances and cautions And who knows whether the Arrows of Hercules of which the Fables alledge that they were imbued with the blood of an Hydra were not infected with this poison of Vipers So 't is believed by Diodorus Siculus when he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ovid gives the name of Viper to the Hydra when in his ninth Book of Metamorph he saith Pars quota Lerneae serpens erit unus Echiánae And afterwards Capit inscius heros Induitur que humeris Lerneae virus Fchidnae To which may be added that Philoctetes the Heir of the Bow and Arrows of Hercules being gon in the Grecian Navy to the Trojan War and having unawares wounded himself as Servius Grammaticus relates l. 3. Aeneid with one of his Arrows in the foot was left among the Grecians in the Isle of Stalimene by reason of the violence of the pain and the intolerable stench of the wound Whence Sophocles alluding it seems to the kind of poison in a Poetical way and phrase relateth that Philoctetes was left in that Isle because he had been bitten by a Viper His words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is O Son of Achilles I am he whom thou mayst have heard to be the possessor of the Herculean Arrows the Son of Paean Philoctetes whom the two Armies and the King of the Isle of Cephalene shamefully left lying here pining away by a cruel disease struck by the fierce bite of a murthering Viper And Cicero himself in his second Book of the Tusculan Questions and in his Book De Fato and many other Writers do follow this opinion viz That Philoctetes was bitten by a Viper And possibly all of them had an eye not only to this place of Sophocles but also to what Homer said before in his sixteenth Book of Iliads And though against this conjecture it may be said that the poision of Vipers is inconsiderable in respect of what Poets do write of the Arrows of Hercules which by them are said not only to have the force of killing without fail whether the wound be small or great as happen'd to the Centaure Chiron and to Nessus but also that the blood of their wounds was become so pestiferous as to infect any live body whatsoever touched thereby and that with such violence as to make the flesh fall off from the bones which they add was experimented by Hercules to his great mischief when his Shirt was tinged with the blood of Nessus whence Ovid saith Victa malis postquam est patientia reppulit aras Implevit que suis nemorosam vocibus Oeten Nec mora letiferam conatur scindere vestem Qua trahitur trahit illa cutim faedumque relatu Aut haret membris frustra tentata revelli Aut laceros artus grandia detegit ossa This is a Poetical Fable whence I am apt to believe is raised that relation concerning the Arrows of Macassar of which 't is said that they kill one in that very moment he receiveth the slightest wound thereby and that also in the space of half an hour the flesh of the killed person becomes so putrisied that it falls off from the bones in many pieces whence do exhale such virulent steams that if they light upon any ordinary and not envenomed wound they mortally infect it and without fail kill the Patient I do here
affirm that I have made many tryal's with those Arrows of the Indians but have not found them in Tuscany of so fierce and malignant a nature as hath been related The Dogs I wounded with them dyed some of them in six others in seven others in twelve others in twenty four hours And their flesh was not putrisied nor fallen in pieces nor did their blood or exhaled steams at all kill other wounded Animals But I have often observed that if one intends to kiâ—l with these Arrows it is not enough to make a simple incision of the flesh but he must by art make them stick a while in the wound which is like to what happens in putting into wounds the powder of the dryed yellow liquor of Vipers Whence it is that those Savages make of Wood the sharp ends of those Arrows imbue them with poison and then joyne them to the Arrow stick in such a manner that those ends ever remain in the wound whether the Arrow do break or be drawn out as came to pass in the Siege of Jerusalem to those Heroes of Flandres Godofred and Robert of whom that great Florentin Poet thus singeth Sospingeva il monton quando è percosso Al Sig. de Fiaminghi il lato manco Si che travia s' allenta è vuol poi trarne Lo strale e resta il ferro entro la carne That is The Engine discharged the left side of the Flandrian Princes was so struck that they were thrust out of their way and when they would draw out the Arrow the Iron stuck within their flesh It is therefore necessary that the Arrows do stick for some time in the wound if they shall kill Whence I understand not how the vulgar comes to fansy that the Blades of Swords may be envenomed I do well remember that with the yellow liquor of Vipers and with other things esteemed venomous I have sometimes slightly tinged Lancets for letting of blood and with them have cut the vein of some Animal or other but death hath not followed upon it Let suspecting men rather beware of the Tents of Chirurgions for 't is too hard to cause death by poison'd Lancets or other such Iron instruments Hence it seems to me to savor of the fable though the case be different that Parisatis the old Queen of the Persians did poison her Daughter-in-law by the hands of her Carver poisoning the one side of the Knife and therewith cutting asunder a Fowl of which he gave to the young Queen to eat that part which the poisoned side of the Knife had envenomed eating the other part himself I could never see the truth of what is related of poisons killing by a meer and momentaneous contact or by vicinity alone as that Stirrups Sadles and Benches have been poisoned and thereby proved mortal Let him believe it that will I cannot And what a certain modern Writer relateth for a great truth concerning a prodigious accident hapned by a kind of Serpents bred in the Indies I must leave to himself who saith After I have spoken of these Serpents I presume it will not be unacceptable to give an account of the strange effect they produce If perchance it happen that they pass over a cloath or shirt dryed in the Sun there is wont to be bred in the Kidneys of those that use this cloath a certain kind of Serpents which little by little growing up do encompass the whole body and when their tayl reaches their head to conjoyn the circle then death is unevitable Wherefore to avoyd this mischief they kill them with Razors and Lancets to prevent their growth You have found above mentioned three persons wounded by the Arrows of Hercules namely Chiron Nessus and Philoctetes The two first dyed suddenly the third after a long sickness escaped If the caufes of this difference were to be given whether it be an History or a Fable I should say that Nessus and Chiron dyed because they were wounded whilst Hercules was yet living by Arrows freshly envenomed besides that Nessus was pierced through his heart as Ovid hath it Jámque tenens ripam missos cùm tolleret artus Conjugis agnovit vocem Nessóque paranti Fallere depositum quò te fiducia clamat Vana pedum violente rapit Tibi Nesse biformis Dicimus exaudi nec res intercipe nostras Si te nulla mei reverentia movit at orbes Concubitus vetitos poterant inhibere paterni Haud tamen effugies quamvis ope fidis equinâ Vulnere non pedibus te consequar Ultima dicta Re probat missâ fugientia terga fagittâ Trajicit extabat ferrum de pectore aduncum Quod simul evulsum est sanguis per utrumque foramen Emicuit mistus Lernaei tabe veneni But Philoctetes was wounded long after the death of Hercules whence 't is credible that those Arrows had lost much of their poisonous force even as the powder of the yellow liquor looseth of its force and the Arrows of Macasser by length of time grow languid which though they poison and kill if one be wounded therewith yet do they no hurt at all if their poison be swallow'd and taken into the stomach Which Experiment I have tryed upon two Doggs to whom I gave to swallow two pieces of flesh covered with the powder of the scrapings of such Arrows as also upon several Chickens to whom I gave the water to drink wherein those shavings had been a long time infused But to return after this long digression to the main thing you may by the above related and often repeated Experiments see that the poâ—son of the Italian Viper consists not in an imaginary idea of anger raised to revenge but rather in that yellow liquor which is voided out of the bags of the bigger teeth of Vipers which juyce if it chance to be spilled in the mouth and upon the Pallat of those animals is able to envenoin the spittle which moistens their throat I should think it very well worth while for those learned Authors of the book of the New Experiments that they would please to make their Experiments anew And if they shall find them conform to those they have already published and really contrary to mine then we may unanimously conclude that we have lighted upon a truth hitherto unknown which is That the Poison of the French Vipers consists in an imaginary Idea of a revengeful anger but that of the Italian ones hath its seat in that yellow liquor so often mentioned by me But if on the other side the French Experiments should not hold then it may be affirmed that the French as well as the Italian Vipers are of one and the same nature and have the same kind of poison Wherefore if in Italy the Viper in poison certainly lodges in that yellow liquor it will be no untruth in me to affirm that if by biting a Viper should have lost all that juyce residing in those bags and that also which may be furnisht
person full of business rather then enjoying leisure and that you would please only to regard the naked truth which without any passion I did undertake to relate A CONTINUATION Of the NEW EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING VIPERS TOGETHER With a Discourse touching their Poyson By way of Reply to a Letter written by Signor FRANCESCO REDI to Messieurs BOURDELOT and MORUS Printed at Florence 1670. By MOYSE CHARAS English'd out of French LONDON Printed by T. R. for John Martyn Printer to the Royal Society at the Bell in S. Pauls Churchyard 1673. A CONTINUATION Of the NEW EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING VIPERS Finisht in the Press at Paris August 4. 1671. I Believed I had sufficiently establish'd my opinion touching the Poison of Vipers by abundance of Experiments supported by Reasons heretofore made publick But there hath since appear'd at Paris a Letter of Signor Redi in which he opposes my sentiments And he being a person whose merit hath acquir'd him a great reputation among the Learned that Letter of his hath not been without making some impression in the minds of many and in some even of those that had relish'd my opinion in favour of which they seem'd to have already declared themselves I might indeed have defended my self as to that which is against me in that Letter soon after it appear'd having reasons strong and numerous enough to maintain and justifie all I had advanced in my writing But I thought it better to deferr it till Spring to the end that after I should have made New Experiments and the more assur'd my self of all I might by a renew'd knowledge of the truth afterwards the better perswade the publick thereof It will therefore appear by this Sequel of Experiments here set down that I am so far from changing my Opinion that I have reason to be more strongly than ever confirmed in what I embraced at first I do herewith sincerely declare that when I published my book my chief aim was faithfully to relate all the truths I had discover'd and not to offend Signor Redi whom I exceedingly esteem and honour for his rare Talents and whose friendship I hope to have a share in so far was I from pretending to do any thing that might make him write against my Book or from fore-seeing that ever I should have occasion to labour to defend my self against him Which yet I since found otherwise by the Letter he hath written against me and even without honoring me with a Copy of it wherewith he hath gratified many persons at Paris and elsewhere even after I had had the advantage of some Letterary Commerce with him as I might easily justifie I can besides protest that when I resolved to contradict certain points of his first Letter it was in a manner against my will and because I could not at all dispense with it except I would have baffled my senses and that light I saw my self together with a great number of witnesses I can also assure that I should now be very ready to un-say what I have affirm'd upon this subject and to agree with him if I were not altogether perswaded of the contrary in the main things he hath written against my Sentiments After these Protestations being well assured as well by Reason as by many new Experiments newly made that I have asserted nothing but what is true I found my self indispensably obliged to maintain it and to render a good office to the publick by endeavouring to shew that 't is very difficult reasonably to oppose any thing to the contrary The difference between Signor Redi and me consists chiefly in this That he Pretends the Jellow Liquor contain'd in the Vesicles of the Gums of Vipers to be the only and true seat of their Poison That this juyce is not venomous when taken at the mouth but that it is so when let into the wounds made by a Viper whilst she is alive and even in those which she may be forced to make several days after she is dead provided that yellow liquor do intervene That the same liquor drawn from a live Viper as well as that of a dead one is always venomous if let into wounds and mingled with the blood of the Animal wounded whether it be used when liquid or after it is dryed and reduced to powder and that it generally kills all kind of Animals into the wounds of which it shall have been intromitted But I who of all these points can admit of none but that of the innocence of the yellow liquor when taken at the mouth and opposing my self to all the rest do say That the Poison of a Viper is no where but in her enraged Spirits that the yellow juyce as well of a live Viper and even a vexed one as of one that is either newly dead or hath been so for several days contains in it no poison at all neither in the biting nor taken inwardly nor put into wounds nor mingled with the blood nor any other way wherein it may be used that it kills nor infects any kind of animals and that it is nothing but a meer and innocent Saliva The question must principally be decided by matter of Fact though it may also be cleared by very pertinent reasons I am far from accusing Signor Reds of unfaithfuless in his Experiments though they were not made in publick as mine and that some thing might be said as to the formalities of the biting and the using of the yellow liquor His reputation is too well grounded to be blamed and this is the consideration which troubles me most Mean time I see the contrary to what he hath advanced against my Book and the truths which I there oppose are so clearly seen in my Experiments first and last as well in those I have made only in the presence of some curious persons as in those I have lately made in publick and before a great number of Physitians and other persons very intelligent in these matters So that I can noâ— ought any longer to hide those truths which are the chief inducement of writing this discourse We need not wonder that Signor Redi having made all his Experiments by order and at the expence of so great a Prince who is as curious as he is Munificent had Vipers and all sorts of Animals in far greater number than I had I who did all from my self at my own charges and with a meer desire to discern truth from falshood Nor do I think I was obliged to multiply expences when the truth was found sufficiently clear'd up and all the by-standers acknowledged that I had made sufficient tryals for every Experiment For since he hath contented himself with having made some of the yellow liquor to be swallowed by one only Man one only Duck one only Kid thence to know and to assure himself of its innocence when swallow'd without making a greater number of Experiments He must not blame me for having candidly bounded my curiosity after I had in
divers things made many more Experiments then he mentions he hath made upon this subject as appears by what he writeth p. 17 18. of his first Letter I find therefore that he hath no great cause to complain of me as he doth under the name of those Illustrious Authors to whom he ascribes my Book in his Letter for not having vouchsafed to make Experiments enow to confirm the truth of the Observations about Vipers contain'd in his first Letter of 1664. He had not I say great cause to speak of it after such a manner since I did do so but in imitation of him and because he had in the same Letter advanced and assured particulars which required not I should make more tryals then those I have described in my Book Although I can assure to have made more then I have recited He knows very well that about the end of pag. 23. of his first Letter he used these words Equel veleno shizza tutto fuora se non al primo almeno al secondo morso si che il terzo epiù volte l'ho esperimentato non è velenoso That is And that poison issues all out if not at the first at least at the second biting so that the third which I have often experimented is not venomous And if because of the respect I bear to the writings of a person of so high a reputation I thought among divers other Experiments that having made one and the same Viper every time vexed to bite five several Pigeons which all died and even the last of them sooner then the rest I might stop there I think Signor Redi hath nothing to reproach me with He had assured in his first Letter and assures the same in his latter That all the poison did lodge in the yellow liquor and that this poison was all exhausted if not at the first yet at least at the second biting and that he had often experimented that the third was no more venomous So that if I was perswaded that all the yellow Liquor must be come out by the second biting made upon the second Pigeon and if after that I have seen dye three other Pigeons by the fresh bitings of the same Viper that had bitten the two first I do not think that Sign Redi hath right to accuse me for not having done enough He might rather have done me that justice as to acknowledge that I had done more then enough to maintain my Reflexions and that I was obliged from that time to seek the poison elsewhere then in the yellow liquor in regard it did no longer intervene according to him in the three last bitings and that the three last Pigeons were as soon yea sooner dead then the two first of the death of which he could charge the yellow liquor If I could not find no more then Sign Redi in all the body of the Viper any other visible or palpable part that was venomous and that might justly be declared to be the seat of the poison and the true cause of the death which ensued upon the three last bitings he must not wonder if I have sought and found it in the vexed Spirits and if I have grounded my self upon the best evidence I could get from Experiments and Reason But since the chief motive of my tryals hath been the desire of exactly knowing the Truth concerning those matters having seen that Sign Redi pag. 31. of his last Letter hath desired I would make new experiments after his Objections against me To be the more assured of all I have been willing to give him that satisfaction in giving it to my self For in the moneth of May last in the Chymical Laboratory of the Royal Garden in the presence of two or three hundred by standers both Physitians and others capable to judge of it and worthy to be credited from amongst many live Vipers sent me out of Dauphine and divers parts of Poitou I chose a great Femal-Viper that was lusty enough notwithstanding the great way she came and having open'd her jawes I very carefully cleared and squeezed out of them at several repetitions all the yellow liquor contained in the bags of her gums and that also which might be diffused about the neighbouring parts with a fine piece of linnen cloth wound about the handle of a pen knife Which done I took the same Viper with Pincers about hér neck and angred her in making her to fasten her teeth into the end of her tail and in pressing from time to time her neck with those Pincers and immediately after I presented to her five Pigeons and two Pullets one after another to bite them in the most fleshy part of their Chest having irritated her every time of her biting I purposely wounded also six Pigeons and Pullets in divers places in the presence of all the company and let into the wounds some drops of the yellow liquor drawn from the Vesicles of newly enraged Vipers I laid both sorts a part and the company parted about an hour after before which time five of the Pigeons and Pullets that had been bitten were dead and the two remaining died about an hour after but the Pigeons and Pullets which I had wounded and in whose wounds I had put in some of the said juyce ailed nothing but that there appeared some lividness at the place wounded and such an one as might have been there from the sole wounding them and without any concurrence of that liquor Two days after I shew'd the company the same wounded Pullets and the same Pigeons which were very well and had their wounds almost perfectly healed up only there remain'd a little blewness about the wounded parts I would then have wounded the same animals again in other places and intromitted fresh yellow liquor some also of the by-standers proposed to let into one of these creatures some of this yellow liquor by that way of Transfusion that hath lately been made in divers parts of Europe of some stranger blood into the veins of men that so this juyce being mingled with the blood by the ordinary circulation it might be able to discover what ever it could do I readily complied with their motion whereupon the intromission of this liquor was attempted upon one of the same Pigeons that had been wounded two days before One Physitian and two Chirurgions did the work one after onother in making both the incision and the ligature of the most discernable vessels of the right wing But they let the Pigeon loose so much blood that it dyed soon after Seeing this I said that the Pigeon dyed only from the loss of its blood and not from the letting in of the yellow liquor and that it would be necessary one only Chirurgion of the Company shou'd make a new operation upon another of the same Animals that had been wounded 2 days before and upon whom that yellow Juyce had also been tryed The Operation was made accordingly at the same time
than as of a thing he was not at all assured of And though he may say that he hath had thoughts of it sooner than I who have not medled with Vipers but some years after his first Letter that what he had written of it gave me from that time occasion and a desire to seek for those Pipes and the Glanduls that might convey thither the yellow liquor that the belief he had of the Generation of this juyce in the whole head induced me to search for the Salival Glanduls higher and farther off than the place under the bottom of the vesicles and that I doubt not that himself might have found these true Glanduls if he would have taken pains for it I answer that since he hath not done it he ought not to be offended at my having labour'd for him and succeeded in so doing Neither hath he any right to deny that I have first found described and to the life represented the two heaps of Salival Glanduls of a Viper with all their Vessels as well for forming as conveying the yellow liquor into the Vesicles that cover the great teeth As to what Sign Redi saith of me speaking of the Authors of my Book that I have changed the words under the bottom into those at the bottom of the vesicles of the gums and there sought in vain for the two small Glanduls which he assures to have found there in all Vipers I answer that whilst he is critical as to the letter of the words I keep to the truth of the matter of fact And I can assure to have searched with much care not only in the whole bottom of the vesicles but every where under the bottom of them but have not found any whether great or small Glanduls nor any thing of the colour of a Glandul nor that came any way near to their form I put it then for a truth that there is not to be found any Glandul neither in nor under the bottom of the vesicles and that under the bottom there is nothing but the gristly bone that gives the shape to the nose of a Viper the two sharp ends of the two advanced bones of the skull to which the two great teeth are firmly annexed the conduit of the smell that of the hearing some small vein some little Artery some little Nerve the extremity of a Muscle and the two ends of the Salival Channels that discharge into the vesicles as you may see it in a manner described in the Anatomy made of it by me After this Signor Redi himself shews that it was impossible there should be Glanduls under the bottom of the vesicles since he saith pag. 38. of his last Letter Ne io poteva mai scrivere c. that is Nor could I at all write that those Glanduls lay in the bottom of the vesicles if I was of opinion that the yellow liquor did run into them after it had passed through the Salival conduits which yet I imagined might have their Origin from or connexion with those two Glanduls seen by me and therefore must needs be in a scituation a little distant from the vesicles and not in the bottom of them For since he saith to have meant that the yellow juyce took its course thorough the Salival conduits before its coming into the vesicles He cannot find a way long enough nor a distance great enough for the need of long conduits from the place under the bottom unto that which is in the bottom of the vesicles For there would have needed nothing but a little opening in the same bottom to receive the juyce issuing out of the two little Glanduls he hath spoken of And he shews sufficiently that he cannot maintain those two small Glanduls under the bottom where he would have them to be since now he will needs have them a little distant from the vesicles that he may find in the intervall a space sufficient for the vessels that are necessary to the course of this yellow liquor Besides that it is altogether impossible for two small Glanduls to furnish all that yellow liquor which presents it self in the vesicles since the two great heaps by me found in the two Temples and behind the Orbits of the eyes of a Viper can hardly furnish each about a drop in the space of 24 hours after the vesicles have been well voided Moreover it is very easie to judge by what Sign Redi saith in his First Letter that he understood not the Salival Glands were seated as they are on the two Temples nor so near the skull since he saith that what came into his phancy was that the head of a Viper did not convey that yellow juyce but by certain salival conduits For if he had been of another mind he would not have spoken but of glands or at least he would have begun with them before he had spoken of the conduits which shews also sufficiently that by this means he hath as 't were inverted the order of nature For instead of placing the Glands close to the skul and afterwards the salival conduits he hath begun with these and would have them immediately to receive the juyce of the Brain and to carry them to the vesicles of the gums and that his two pretended glanduls are seated between the extremity of these conduits and the bottom of the vesicles though none be there and it would be altogether useless they should be there because there are none but they that can at the beginning suck digest the humidities of the brain and the neighbouring parts and send them into the vesicles of the gums by the conduits appointed for this office But when Sign Redi accuses me of having taken the bottom of the vesicles for that which is under the bottom of them and of not having rightly understood as he speaks the Toscan tongue I may say that himself hath not very well apprehended nor duly explained the French terms used by me since he saith at the end of pag. 35. and at the beginning of p. 36. of the same last letter Sovra de chi gli Autori delle novelle experience affermano c. That is Whereupon the Authors of the New Experiments do affirm that they could never see such Glanduls as I had named but that instead of them they had found two others which they call Salival thus by them described p. 31. For neither in all that he hath afterwards taken the pains to transcribe out of my book on that subject nor in all the rest of my Section upon the Salival Glanduls he can have read that I say to have found two Glanduls but Glanduls there being a great difference in good French between Deux Glandes and Des Glandes two Glands and Glands And when describing the Glanduls I say that they are seated on the two sides of the Craniuns I say afterwards that there are many small ones joyned together which may be call'd Conglomerate Glanduls And yet more I speak of