and it is much more reasonable that the fleshy parts derive their rednesse wholly from the bloud perpetually irrigating and washing them in its Circulation For their rednesse grows upon them by degrees and that sooner or later according to the degrees of Heat impressed upon the Egge by the Hen and according to the greater or lesse quantity of bloud arriving at them Some parts which are but lightly touched by the bloud never become red in which account are the coats of the Eyes the Ligaments Tendons Membranes Bones c. Others obtain a certain palenesse dashed with a sparing mixture of red as the Glandules which as they are furnished with greater or smaller arteries respective to their magnitude so are they tinged with more or lesse of rednesse The Musculous flesh is more deeply died with scarlet than the Glandules as being irrigated with greater streames of bloud The Kidneys Liver Spleen Lungs and Heart are all washed with full streams of bloud and therefore have a deeper dye of rednesse than any other parts and yet are much lesse red than the bloud it self Now it is more reasonable to conceive that the Greater should communicate its virtue to the Lesser than on the contrary the Lesser to the Greater For how can any Natural Agent operate beyond the sphere of its activity i.e. the measure of its power or communicate that to another which it self wanteth Again nothing can have an activity before it hath a beeing and consequently the solid parts cannot give a rednesse to the bloud because they are not in beeing till after the bloud Nothing therefore remains to be the Efficient of the Bloud but the Vital Spirit kindled originally in the purest part of the seminal matter or Colliquamentum which we may well denominate the Vital Liquor Concerning the THIRD considerable viz. the Manner of this grand operation of the Vital Spirit The Manner how bloud is first generated in an Embryo by that Vital Spirit though it be very obscure yet doe we not think it altogether inexplicable if we deduce the bloud from its first Origine the newly mentioned Vital Liquor This Vital Liquor before it assumes the colour and forme of Bloud doth begin to separate it self from the other parts of the Egge to which it is at first promiscuously admixed and to runne its selfe out into certain slender rivulets or branchings which afterward become Veins These rivolets concurring in a point meet altogether at the centre of the Colliquamentum which centre being the principal seat of the Plastique spirit and acquiring a certain mication or pulsation is then called Punctum Saliens And all this is done before there is any the least appearance of bloud in the Egge So soon therefore as these Rivulets are conjoyned the Flux of the Vital Liquor is for some time so hindred by and repressed in them as that being indeâ—inently agitated by the Spirit of Life it aestuateth and indeavours to expand it self and enlarge its bounds and seeing that it cannot flow back againe toward the circumference by the same passages which brought it toward the centre by reason of fresh supplies of Vital Liquor pressing it forward continually in the course begun it is compelled to force it self again into the seminal matter from whence at first it began its motion through other slender conduits newly for that purpose formed and then it begins to flow in a round For this appears to be the true reason of the Circumgyration of the Vital Liquor from the very beginning Soon after this the Rivulets or pipes first made and leading from the circumference to the Centre become Veins and the others made in the second place and leading from the centre to the cicumference become Arteries which yet others disallow in respect of the fabrick of the valves and then in the poynt of their concourse or confluence the Heart is framed Through which Heart and the conduits annexed or rather continued unto it the one sort tending toward the other from ward the centre the Vital Liquor doth while life lasteth perpetuate its motion and at the same time irrigate and vivifie all parts of the matter which it continually washeth in that its circular course Now this Circulaâ—ion is begun for some time before the Vital Liquor is excocted into bloud as may be conceived from hence that when the motion of the Punctum Saliens is plainly visible there is no bloud but only a clear transparent liquor or as the Learned Harvey call's it the Colliquamentum and also from hence that while the Seminal Matter is yet thin and fluid the Vital Liquor can easily disperse its channels through the same there being then no impediment to that its expansive motion and operation but if it should defer its dispersion and making of rivulets til after the solid parts were made 't is hard to conceive how it could be able to shoot it self forth into branches and make its way through them This Dance of Life being thus begun and in what part of the Conception it is first generated viz in the Châ—rion though no Bloud yet appears yet soon after it doth appear the Vital Liquor while continually though slowly circulated by little and little assuming the form of Bloud And the place in which the bloud first shews it selfe is the Chorion not the Heart For seeing that the Chorion ought to be made solid and firme before any other of the parts of the Conception insomuch as it serveth as well for the safeguard as nourishment of all the other parts and that to this end there is no moysture comming from without that might hinder its being made solid and that the Chorion as involving the whole conception is the first part that receiveth the warmth of the Hen during her incubation we say from hence it comes that the vital Liquor doth first of all obtain the forme of Bloud in the Chorion And this is effected the sooner because the vital Liquor doth more easily emit its exhalations in that place as being in the circumference than in any other more remote from it and unlesse those exhalations were freely emitted the Spirits of the Vitall Liquor would inevitably be soon extinguished It is moreover probable that at this time the Vital Heat is more potent and active in the exteriour parts of the Conception than in the Centre and so that the First Bloud is made in the Chorion where it first discovers it self to the sight of the inspector Hence also we may observe that because there is no bloud to be discerned in the Punctum Saliens for many hours together after bloud is discernable in the Chorion therefore must the Circulation of the bloud be exceeding slow in the begining for as soon as the bloud that is in the Chorion performing its circular motion arriveth at the Heart it cannot but be discerned in the Punctum Saliens Now In the generation of Blood what are the Concurrent Extrinsecal Causes and what the
Accessary Organical these observations being undeniable we may safely assert that the Vital Spirit in the Seminal matter being excited and assisted by the external heat of the Hen sitting upon the Egge and by degrees becoming active and infusing heat into the vital Liquor wherein it doth reside doth thereupon in processe of time induce the colour of bloud and that only by means of its vital Heat and Motion and that no other part is to be reputed for Principal Agent in the work of Sanguification Neverthelesse we do not hereby exclude Concurrent extrinsecal Agents or Causes but into that account readily admit the Hen whose warmth at first both excited and assisted the Vital Spirit in the work of Sanguification and the substance of the Heart it self which afterward conduceth in some sort to the same Nor do we repudiate Accessory Organical Causes as the Fabrick of the Heart the Arteries and Veins all which are inservient to the continual motion of the bloud Only we affirme that the Vital spirit by reason of its Heat and Motion hath a just right to the dignity of Principal Agent in making of Blood We say The Conversion of the Colliquamenâ—um into Bloud by the heat and motion of the Vitall Spirit illustrated by sundry analogous Experiments and Observations By reason of its Heat and motion For that Colours frequently are advanced from a white or pale to several kinds of Red meerly by Heat and Motion is demonstrable by sundry easie and familiar Experiments Our Confectioners well know that long boyling of Quinces and other Fruits doth give them a ruddy colour So likewise Fruits baked in an oven are more inclined to redness than while they were raw The same is true also even of Flesh and Bread which by baking or rosting acquire redness in their superficial parts and some Chymists affirme that a Tincture of Bread will assume a certain degree of redness after long digestion This is not we acknowledge common to all Liquors especially simple ones for simple waters and such as are destilled suffer little or no change of colour upon decoction though long But generally all Compound Liquors especially if they contain any Nutritive juice in competent quantity and have besides any touch of salt or Acid spirits in them are observed to acquire a sanguine tincture by decoction Upon which fertile hint as we conjecture that highly Learned Industrious in Apolog. pro circulatione sanguinis advers Parisan p. 119. and Acute Person Dr. ENT seems to have grounded that ingenious opinion of his that the Redness of the Blood ariseth ex Aciditate spiritus vitalis salinei from the Acidity of the vital spirits having their original from a certain seminal salt However we have good reason to perswade our selves that all vital Liquors i. e such wherein the vital spirits of Animals do reside are apt to acquire more or less of redness provided they obtain sufficient Heat and agitation or strife in their motions This is evident in all Sanguineous Animals in which the Chyle is first white and after changeth into bloud And as for Exsanguious Animals they also give some testimony of this truth as may be instanced in Oysters in which bloud is frequently found and yet without a prodigy in summâ—r time by reason their vital Heat seems then to be augmented and in winter when their Heat is again lessened below what is requisite to induce redness their vital juice is alwayes whitish To return to sanguineous Animals as they are generally hotter of constitution than Exsanguious so are their Sanguine parts alwayes hotter than their pale and white parts In like manner in cold diseases as the Green sickness Cachexy Dropsy and in all Phlegmatique constitutions the bloud is paler than in hot diseases and constitutions Again the venal blood as it loseth the heat which it had acquired in passing through the heart and arteries so doth it proportionately by little and little lose that florid and deep scarlet dye that it had in the heart and arteries For blood let forth of a vein appears blewish and comes short of that lively fresh scarlet that is observed in bloud effluxed from an Artery All which clearly shew by whose efficiency it is that the vital juice in Sanguineous Animals is excocted into Bloud and what conserves the same in its primitive purity and lustre viz. the vital spirit continually renewed in and enlivening the blood for that being once extinguished how soon doth the bloud degenerate into Cruor and lose its fresh scarlet tincture Having thus investigated what that is That the same Agent which maketh the first blood in an Embryo doth make it ever after in an Animal dâ—ring life which makes the First Bloud in an Embryo by converting the vital Liquor from a white into a purple Nectar we cannot be long in exploring what that is which in Animals maketh bloud all the life after by converting the Chyle likewise from a white into a red liquor It is an infallible rule you know that the identity of Effects dependeth upon the identity of Causes because an effect is not supposed to be untill it hath obtained existence from its proper causes and at the same time the causes give that existence they cannot but give also the identity belonging to it All which is imported in that common Axiome Idem quà idem semper facit idem For though Free and Arbitrary Causes may act at liberty and by varying the manner of their operating vary also their effects yet Natural ones are bound up to a determinate mode of energie and must as long as they continue the same act after one and the same way and so produce invariably the same effects Forasmuch therefore as the Efficient of the First Blood is an Agent Natural and not Arbitrary if it continue the same in an Animal while the Animal lives it must of necessity continue the same operation That it doth continue the very same during life is most certain because it is the Principle of life nor can life subsist for so much as one moment without it Nor doth this Efficient of Bloud only persist the same in the body that it was at the first conception but growes every day more vigorous potent and fit for the work untill the Animal hath attained to the flower of his age and to imagine that an Agent Natural such as the Vital Spirit should at any time become idle intermit its operation and not exercise all its forces is grossely absurd Conclude we therefore that the Vital Spirit as it is the Efficient Cause of Sanguification in the Embryo from the first Conception so is it constantly Author of the same work untill the Animal dieth OF THE VSES OF THE BLOOD Exercitation the Fifth IT followeth now Artâ—cle 1. that we enquire To what End Nature hath consigned so continuall a province That the Bloud is not the General Nourishment of the body Because as this of Sanguification to that
have undergone severall Circulations and as many fresh Accensions in the Heart For in every Circulation they grow more and more subtile and agile and so must at length be brought to the requisite height of volatility To which having once attained in the very next Circulation though they are restrained and kept in by the sides of the heart and coats of the arteries while they remain therein being diffused upon the outward parts of the body as they warm and vivify those parts so do they soon flye away and disperse themselves into air And while these thus flye away other Spirits lesse volatile are by the colder temperament of the parts by which they pass somewhat repressed so that the force of their expansive motion is much abated the Mication or panting of the bloud interrupted and the bloud wherein they are of Arterial or vital bloud is made venouse or Natural and such it continueth untill the next circulation bring it again to the heart there to be kindled afresh and exalted to the due heat of vitality Which once acquired it recovers its intermitted motion of Mication or rising and falling alternately and yeeldeth a fresh supply of spirits vital which being transmitted to the habit of the body are soon dispersed like the former And thus is the vital Flame kept alive at no lesse expence The Reason of the Mication or panting motion of the Blood in the arteries than a continual dissipation of the most votatile spirits of the blood For that vital Heat ariseth from within and the most subtile spirits are the first Movers to the excitement thereof the motion by which they do it being their indeavour to expand themselves and to dilate their bounds while the other grosser elements or ingredients of the bloud oppose them therein And this strife or Counter-activity of the spirits on one part and of the grosser ingredients of the blood on the other doth exhibite the general Essence of Heat To which may be added this short observation that in this Contention one while the spirits prevailing do lift up or swell the mass of bloud another while the grosser elements the contraction of the Heart and arteries assisting them prevailing countermand and interrupt that expansive motion and that by this alternate conquest of these Antagonists is made the Mication or Rising and Falling of the blood the one in the Dilatation the other in the Contraction of the Heart and arteries Forasmuch therefore as the vital Heat doth consist in the rarefactive motion of the spirits and the renitence of the grosser parts of the bloud and that the spirits for the most part at least alternately obtain the victory and dominion over their opponents it seems most consentaneous to truth that this vital Heat cannot be preserved without a perpetual expence of the most pure i.e. the most volatile spirits of the blood and consequently necessary that during life fresh spirits must be perpetually minted out of the blood to defray that vast and continual expence And this we conceive to be the true progress of Nature from the first reception of the spirits contained in the Aliment to their education into the Chyle their sublimation in the heart their gradual exaltation to the highest degree of volatility and lastly their dissipation through the skin into aer upon which depends the Conservation of the vital Heat and the continual Generation of the vital Spirits OF THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD ITS CONDITIONS AND CAVSES Exercitation the Sixth Of the Motion of the Blood its Conditions and Causes NAture which in all her works hath the End The Method of the Chapter and Means conducing to that End alwayes closely connected in one idea having ordained the perpetual generation of this vital Nectar the Blood in Animals for the Uses in the precedent Chapter recited that she might not be deficient in the means requisite to fulfill those Uses hath also ordained that the blood should be carried from the Fountain to all the parts in living streams by a certain admirable Motion necessary to its distribution through the whole body Now that we may fully understand the nature of this Motion we are to consider 1 the Manner 2 the Conditions 3 the Causes of it Concerning the FIRST we observe That the Motion of the blood is Circular that the blood is continually carried or rather driven from its fountain the Heart in the centre of the body by the Arteries to the circumference and back again from the circumference to the centre by the veins irrigating cherishing and vivifying all the parts as it passeth along and that therefore this Motion was by the glorious Inventer of it Dr. Harvey called the Circulation of the blood quòd Ejus enim semper redeat labor actus in orbem For in the first place From the Vena Cava into the right Ventricle of the heart the blood is effused out of the vena Cava into the right ventricle of the Heart as may be evidently seen in living Animals dissected especially in Coneys For if the trunck of the vena Cava be bound with a ligature both above and below the heart you may perceive all the blood contained in the space betwixt the ligatures to be speedily discharged into the right ventricle of the heart to which the vena Cava is conjoyned From the right ventricle of the heart it is the heart contracting it self expelled into the vena arteriosa From the right Ventricle by the Vena arteriosa into the Lungs and so into the Lungs but not through the septum transversum or middle partition of the heart as some have imagined conceiving the same to have some certain obscure passages from the right into the left ventricle only because they could without much violence thrust a style or probe through it when indeed those passages are not made by Nature but by the point of the probe the flesh of the heart being so tender as that it is easily penetrated by any hard and pointed instrument though but gently intruded Passing through the vena arteriosa into the very substance of the Lungs the bloud is immediately returned into the venosa arteria From the Lungs through the Arteria Venosa into the left Ventricle and through that into the Left ventricle of the Heart This is demonstrable thus Having made a ligature upon the great branch of the Arteria venosa neer the pericardium in the lungs of an Animal yet living you may observe that branch to be soon filled and much distended with bloud in that part which is toward the lungs and that emptied and flaccid that is next the heart and upon remove of the ligature the bloud will flow amain from the lungs to the left ventricle Now there being no other way by which this bloud can flow to the left ventricle but from the lungs it must of necessity descend thence by the Arteria venosa The left ventricle having thus taken in a quantity of bloud
in a moment and the blood may be observed to flow in its course very swiftly so soon as the ligature is removed But how swiftly is not easily determined there being so great variety of Causes Natural Non-naturall and Preternatural that accelerate or retard the flux of the blood only thus may be inferred from the precedent compute of the number of Pulses and the quantity of blood expelled out of the left ventricle of the heart in every systole That the whole mass of blood doth pass through the heart once in an hour or two at most Yet is not the current of blood neer so swift in its channels while they are whole as when one of them vein or artery is cut because in that case the blood streams forth into the free and easily-yielding aer without any resistance but being confined in its vessels it is forced to distend them and drive-on the foregoing current 4 As swift in the Veines as in the Arteries For Of equall velocity in the Arteries and veins though the impulse be more vehement in the atteries as being continued to the heart than in the veins and therefore it might seem reasonable at first consideration that the motion should be proportionately more swift in the arteries yet considering that the Arteries are still smaller and smaller toward their extremities that the flux of the blood must needs be more and more retarded as it approacheth those extremities and on the contrary that the veins grow wider and wider from their extremities to the centre of the body and so the blood hath still larger and larger spaces to run through in its return to the heart we may safely conclude conjecturally that the velocity of the motion is as great in the veins as in the arteries This is also confirmed by sense for the Vena Cava in all that tract from the Liver to the subclavian division may be observed to beat as often as the Great Artery and so must import blood into the right Ventricle as fast as the Aorta doth export it from the left Which doubtless is the reason why the Vena Cava hath fleshy Fibres upon it when it approacheth the heart Nevertheless we conceive the motion to be swifter in the Arteries when the heart contracting it self doth impell the blood into and through them than when dilating it self again it doth intermit that its impulse Which is true likewise of the blood in the veins as may be sometimes observed in Phlebotomy when the ligature is not so streight as to cause much distension of the vein in which the incision is made for in that case the blood wil flow forth more swiftly every time the heart is contracted And these are the Conditions of this admirable motion of the blood Lastly concerning the CAUSE of this motion it is necessary that the blood be moved either by it self or by some other principle and if it be the Author of its own motion then that must be in respect of either an inherent motive-Faculty or of its Ebullition or of its Rarefaction or of its Quantity whereby the Ventricles of the heart are distended and so irritated as to discharge the same by contracting themselves If the motion be derived from an External principle then it must be referred either to Attraction or to Vection or to Pulsion Let us therefore see which of all these may be the most likely cause of the Motion of the blood First That the bloud is not the cause of its own Motion The blood not the cause of its owne motion in respect of any motive Faculty inherent in it ratione insitae sibi Facultatis by reason of any inherent Faculty may be inferred from hence that in bloud effused out of its vessels into the body or any other receiver no motion at all can be observed and it is hard to conceive that it should be so corrupted in a moment as wholly to lose a faculty essential to it Dr. Harvey we confess affirmeth that he observed a certain obscure motion of the blood in the right ear of the Heart where He supposeth the motion of the Heart first to begin and last to end after the Ear had ceased to move but we refer that to the Mication of the blood from the Vital Spirits not yet wholly extinguished Secondly That it is not the Author of its own motion Nor in respect of its Ebullition ratione Ebullitionis which Arist. calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is manifest from these subsequent reasons 1 No Ebullition can be constantly equall or of the same tenour but the Pulse of the heart and so the motion of the bloud is in temperate and healthy men for the most part equall 2 As the Ebullition is greater so would the pulse but in burning Fevers the Ebullition is extream great by reason of the great intension of the heat and yet the pulse is frequently small and weak as also in the beginning of putrid Fevers as Galen long since remarked 3 The blood suffers no ebullition as it passeth through the heart For if in the dissection of a living Animal you make an incision either into the left Ventricle of the heart or into the Great Artery neer it you shall perceive the blood flowing out at the hole to be pure and such as before it came into the heart not frothy boyling or rarefied and to continue such as at its first efflux yea more if you receive the blood issuing from an incision of the Vena Cava in one sawcer and that issuing from the left Ventricle in another you shall not be able to discern any difference betwixt the one and the other either soon or a good while after An invincible argument against the Ebullition of the blood first imagined by Aristotle and since defended by many great men his sectators 4 The plunging an arme or legg into cold water would suppress the Ebullition and consequently the motion of the blood For if you apply a close ligature to a mans arme and then immerge the same into cold water or Snow upon solution of the ligature he shall find the blood returning to his heart with so great a sense of cold as very much to offend him Which cold arising to the bloud from its being long detained in the extremities of the arme bound Dr. Harvey will have to be the cause of swooning immediately after blood-letting in many men the heart receiving injury from that acquired cold Thirdly Not ratione Rarefactionis because 1 in living dissections Nor of its Rarefaction where the heart yet continueth its motion no man ever hath or can observe any such thing as rarefied blood to flow from either the left ventricle or the Great Artery if cut but pure and such as is from the Ears let down into the ventrices 2 The Heart it self when cut in pieces or wounded may be observed to beat yet not from any rarefaction of the blood for then it hath no blood in
either of its Ventricles or Ears 3 It hath been observed in Doggs that after the point of the heart hath been cut off and the remainder turn'd upside down though the ventricles could not be halfe full the blood hath yet been squirted forth at the top even to the distance of three or four feet which were impossible in case the rarefaction of the blood were the cause of its motion 4 The musculous flesh of the heart is more firme and strong than to be subject to inflation and detumescence meerly from the rarefaction of the blood It must be a more forceible Agent that moves that great and weighty machine of the heart 5 If the blood were so much rarefied in the Ventricles then certainly ought the orifices of the Vena Arteriosa and Aorta to have been much larger because the blood would have required more room for its egress than for its ingress 6 The motion of the heart and of its valves would be confused for the Diastole of this and opening of them would happen at the same time and consequently the valves would become useless both which are repugnant to experience Besides the opening and shutting of the valves would be co-incident with the Systole of the Great Artery 7 That the blood should be rarefied in the heart and in a moment again refrigerated in the arteries is contrary both to sense and reason and if the rarefaction should so soon cease why is it at all It remains therefore that if the blood be the efficient of its own motion it must be so only ratione Quantitatis But of its Quantity distending the Ventricles of the heart by reason of its quantity filling and distending the Ventricles of the heart and irritating them to discharge it by contracting or shurting themselves For the heart being as it were burdened with the blood distending its cavities doth contract its Fibers and so its Ventricles to vindicate it self from that oppression no otherwise than the stomach guts bladder womb c. which being extended by meat chyle wind urine and the infant drive themselves together by the help of their Fibers and so exclude that was burdensome to them And thus is it probable that the Heart is continually moved by the blood like a Mill perpetually agitated by a stream of water which stream being cut off the motion instantly ceaseth This may be credited upon the force of this one experiment if the Vena Cava be intercepted by a ligature so soon as the heart hath disburdened it self of what blood it hath received from thence it instantly remitteth its motion and upon letting in the stream again by removing the ligature it as suddenly recovers it Than which there cannot be a more convincing argument that the quantity of the blood flowing into the ventricles is a cause of the motion of the heart and so of its own motion We say A Cause not the only cause for we shall soon find another efficient as necessary and immediate Thâ— blood not moved by Attraction to the motion as the blood in the respect mentioned That nothing doth Attract the blood either to or from the heart is evident from hence that in Nature there is no such thing as the motion of a body by attraction as hath been by solid and irrefutable arguments proved by that heroical wit Apolog pro circulat sang advers Parisan â—pag 27. ad 49. and most accomplish't Scholar Dr. Ent and also by our selves in the beginning of our discourse of Occult Qualities whither for expedition sake we referr the unsatisfied Nor is it moved per modum Vectionis by way of Carriage Nor by Vection For nothing can be imagined to carry along the blood in its course but the spirits and those would in respect of their Levity carry it only upward but we see that the blood is moved also downward and ad latera It remains therefore that the blood is moved in round But by Impulsion of the heart endowed with a Pulsifick Faculty per modum Pulsionis by impulsion or protrusion and the Impellent can be no other but the Heart contracting it self and so expelling the blood contained in its ventricles into the Great Artery from whence it is urged or pressed forwards into the smaller arteries by the succeeding current We conceive therefore that the Heart is endowed with a certain Motive-virtue inhaerent and essentiall called the Pulsifick Faculty which is conjoyned as a concomitant cause with the blood it self in giving it a due motion whether it be that this Faculty doth regulate the influx and efflux of the blood which would otherwise be irregular or that of it self it produceth the motion which cannot be afterward continued in case the flux of the blood be once interrupted That this Faculty is necessary may be inferred from these Reasons 1 As the Pulse so the influx of the bloud would be alwayes unequall unless it were regulated by a Faculty 2 When the bloud is moved vehemently in Fevers by the intense heat agitating and urging it and in men at the point of death propter extremos naturae conatus by reason of Natures agony and last efforts yet is the pulse more weak and low than at other times because the Pulsifick Faculty is either much opprest or much weakned On the other side though the Faculty continue strong yet is the influx of the bloud much diminished after large haemorrhages or upon great obstructions of the capillary arteries and veins in the habit of the body Which consideration seems to us sufficient to import the necessity of conjoyning a Pulsifick Faculty with the quantity of the blood distending and so molesting the Heart as a double proxime cause of the bloods motion 3 Though the heart be cut in pieces yet will each piece have a kind of weak pulsation as long as it continues warme which in all probability is to be ascribed to the Faculty implanted in all its Fibres and not yet utterly destroyed 4 It would be derogatory to the majesty of that Prince of all the parts the Heart to be moved by the violent impulse of an external principle and it self conduce nothing thereunto Notwithstanding these reasons alleaged we dare not set up our rest in this doctrine of the Ancients concerning a Pulsifick Faculty implanted in the heart only we have recited it as the most probable Conjecture of all others touching this abstruse Argument the proxime Cause of the Motion of the blood Nor shall we adhere to it longer than untill we shall be so happy as to meet with a more satisfactory solution of that admirable Phaenomenon In the mean time Modesty commands us to declare that we find this Knot to be too hard and intricate for the teeth of our weak understanding And well may we make this acknowledgment when the subtle Frucastorius after a long scrutiny into the same subject was at length forced to desist with Motum cordis soli Deo cognitum
esse opinor and that even Harvey himself professeth that He found it rem arduam difficultatibus plenam We remember the modest sayings of two great Men upon the like difficulties the one of Galen Quo pacto haec fiaut si scrutaberis lib. 15. de usu part cap. 1. exercit 307. num 29. convineeris te non intelligere neque tuam imbecissitatem neque Opificis tui potentiam the other of Scaliger Quandam humanae sapientiae partem esse quaedam aequo animo nescire velle veram sapientiam nolle nimiùm sapere And we think we need say no more in excuse of this our professed ignorance Besides this Two-fold Proxime Cause there is also another Remote one The Fabrique of the heart a remote cause of the motion of the blood viz. the Peculiar Conformation or Fabrique of the Heart and its vessells And among all the parts in this curiously framed Machine of the heart those which are most official or instrumental to the motion are the Fibers and fleshy columnes which serve not so much to the strength of the heart as to the motion of it For in the Systole all the Fibers both small and great as well those in the inside of the ventricles as those in the Septum or partition-wall betwixt them like an artificial network made in the forme of a purse being contracted or drawn together the blood contained in the ventricles must necessarily be expelled or pressed out of them The Motion of the heart which is called the Pulse The Motion of the Heart described as consisting of two◠contrary motions and a Respite betwixt them as being continual and made partly by the influx of the bloud partly by the Pulsifick Faculty residing in the heart it self doth consist of 3 things the Systole the Diastole and the Perisystole all which are to be explained by their proper Causes according as ocular Inspection and Reason doth dictate them to the understanding 1 The Systole being the proper and natural motion of the heart is the Contraction or drawing together of the heart to a narrower compass that so the blood contained in the right ventricle may be expelled through the vena arteriosa into the Lungs and that contained in the left may be expelled into the Great Artery and so into all parts of the body 2 The Diastole being a motion only Accidentary to the heart is a Dilatation or opening of the heart that the blood may flow into the right ventricle out of the vena Cava and into the left out of the Arteria Venosa 3 The Perisystole is a certain quiet or short respite betwixt the Contraction and Dilatation of the heart during the small time that the blood is entering into or issuing out of the ventricles In healthy men this pause is so short as not to be distinguished from either of the two contrary motions but sufficiently manifest in men at the point of death It is also double there being one respite betwixt the Systole and Diastole and another betwixt the Diastole and Systole And this is the natural state of the Heart As to the Figure or Forme of the heart in those contrary motions And the Figure of it in each from the dissection of Animals alive from the commodity of its motion and quiet and from the position of its Fibers and other parts we have learned it to be thus In the Systole it may be observed that 1 the point of the heart is drawn upward toward the Basis of it in order to the expulsion of the blood the length of it being diminished and bredth proportionately encreased because the basis is immoveable in respect of the cone which is fastned neither to nor by any vessells 2 The inner walls or sides toward the ribbs are brought neerer each to other because they are constringed and made narrower as may be perceived by putting a finger into either of the ventricles at the time of their contraction but the outward becoming tumid seem to be enlarged in latitude from the contraction of all parts inflated in the tension or stretching 3 The fore part of the heart is lifted up towards the sternum and chiefly neer the base for where the pulse is felt there doth the heart strike the breast with its base that part being lifted up and brought neer to the sternon and at the same time not in the Diastole is the heart vigorated and the arteries dilated and filled and the pulses are felt both in the breast and wrist the Diastole of the Arteries being coincident with the Systole of the heart But the Pulse is more plainly felt in the left side because there is the origine and orifice of the Aorta 4 The whole heart becomes tense and hard and contracted to a smaller bulk as is manifest both to the sight and to the touch 5 The heart appears white especially in imperfect Animals such as Serpents Frogs Eeles c. by reason of the expulsion of the blood in the Systole In the Perisystole when the heart is soft lux and in its proper state 1 the cone recedeth from the base and in some Animals the base also recedeth from the cone 2 The lateral parts both the interior and exterior are tended toward the ribbs 3 The anterior face of the heart sinks down and the posterior is depressed especially neer the orifice of the great Artery In the Diastole which beginns in the middle of the Dilatation and ends in the middle of the Contraction 1 the upper side is lifted up and distended by the blood falling into the ventricles out of the Vena cava and Arteria venosa the swelling sensibly beginning at the base and progressing to the cone But the base doth not them strike the breast because the Arteries at that instant are contracted and the heart ceaseth from expulsion of the blood 2 The heart is flaccid and soft because it is then only passive in receiving the blood 3 The sides become extense and the cavities enlarged and therefore if you put your finger into the heart during the Diastole you shall perceive no constriction as in the Systole 4 The heart appears red because of the tenuity of its walls and their repletion with blood 5 The Cone receding from the base makes the heart longer that it may be more capable of blood And thus doth the heart vary its Figure in each of these three positions OF THE DEPURATION OF THE BLOOD Exercitation the Seventh Of the Depuration of the BLOOD FRom the Circulation of the blood we as Nature advance to the DEPURATION or Defecation of it from its unprofitable or excrementitious parts And here we are to consider 1 the Generation 2 The severall sorts of Excrements generated in and to be separated from the blood 3 The parts in which and 4 The Manner how they are separated Concerning the FIRST we observe that the blood being a heterogeneous liquor The Genealogy of the Excrements consisting of
true that the Lungs are filled with aer and emptied again or elevated and depressed alternately as Bellowes are yet is it doubtfull whether as the hand which moves the bellowes by opening and shutting them is the cause both of the influx and efflux of the aer in them there be not some other part of the Chest besides the Lungs which being first dilated and contracted is the cause why the Lungs are opened and shut or more plainly whether the â—xpansion of the Lungs be from an ingenite Faculty And that the Lungs have no such Ingenite Motive-Faculty is sufficiently manifest even from hence that their motion is alwayes conforme to that of the Diaphragme and from hence that we can suppresse accelerate or retard our respiration as we please Others derive the motion of the Lungs from the Heart Nor from the impulse of the blood out of the heart into the Lungs or rather the blood expelled out of the right ventricle of the heart through the Vena arteriosa into the Lungs and so lifting them up But this is erroneous because 1 the efflux of the blood out of the right ventricle is caused by an ordinary motion purely natural to the heart whereas as we said even now Respiration is sometimes arbitrary 2 the cause of pulsation and Respiration would then be not onely one and the same but those motions also would agree in their times and periods whereas scarce four nay six pulses are equal in time to one single Respiration 3 the blood doth not stay long enough in the vessels of the Lungs to keep them elevated all that while they are distended but is in continual motion and in a moment circulated by the Arteria venosa into the left ventricle of the Heart and where it is retarded in its course by any misaffection either in the capillary vessels or in the substance of the Lungs as it many times happens in the disease vulgarly called the Rising of the Lights it causeth extream difficulty of breathing 4 in great Apoplexies while the pulse continueth good and regular the Respiration many times ceaseth Others will have it that the Lungs borrow their motion from the Thorax or Nor from the motion of the Muscles of the Thorax Chest containing them but the reason which detaine us from assenting thereto is that after the chest is cut quite open the Lungs continue their motion for a good while and strongly which were impossible if they derived their motion from the chest Now it being evinced that the Lungs are not moved either by themselves But from the Diaphragme moved by a congenite Faculty or by the Heart or by the Thorax it remains that they must be moved by some other part in the Breast in which as in the first original the motion of Inspiraiton doth begin and this part seems to be no other but the Diaphragme and that for these reasons 1 In wounds or perforations of the breast the Lungs instantly falling together as it were close themselves for some short space while the Diaphragme is still elevated and depressed alternately contracting and againe relaxing the ends of the spuricus ribbs and cartilages to which it is annexed whence it comes that the aer rusheth violently into the cavity of the chest and upon the elevation of the Diaphragme is driven out again through the wounds with impetuosity sufficient to blow out a candle 2 Every man in Inspiration feels the Thorax to be dilated and the whole Abdomen lifted up and the ends of the lower ribs to be drawn inward the Diaphragme being extended downward with its middle part crowding down the stomack liver and guts and with its circumference or extream parts contracting the ribs 3 Allowing the Diaphragme to be the primum Movens among all parts inservient to inspiration we may easily understand why the Respiration becomes more frequent and remiss when the stomach is full and when the Aer is made more dense than ordinary by fogs and thick exhalations For in the former case the Diaphragme hath not room enough to expand it self downward as it ought and so is compelled to compensate the smallness of its motion by the frequency of it and in the latter the Lungs are so prepossessed with gross vapours as that they cannot admit much aer at a time and therefore the Diaphragme is necessitated to repeat its motions so much the oftner 4 In Apoplexies unless they be fatal though the Respiration be almost insensible yet the motion of the Diaphragme is continued as may be peroeived by the gentle motion of the Chest. 5 Respiration is more perturbed and vitiated by diseases of the Diaphragme than by those of any other part of the breast and it hath been observed by Veslingius that a steatoma grown upon even the carneous part of it caused extreme difficulty of breathing Now these are the Reasons that have induced us to believe that the Motion of Respiration begins in the Diaphragme which being a kind of Muscle of a peculiar figure Syntagm Anâ—tom p. iiâ— substance position and action may as well be conceived to be extended by virtue of a certain peculiar and ingenite Faculty as the Heart is by a Pulsifick Faculty so that we may conclude the same to be the prime and principal instrument of Respiration Natural or Gentle We say Natural or Gentle by contradistinction to Respiration Violent Yet as well the Intercost all as Pectoral Musclâ—â— are allowed to conspâ—re with the Diaphragme in Respiration violent and Arbitrary or Arbitrary For allowing of Galen's triple difference of Respiration viz. Free and Gentle violent and more violent or sublime we conceive the First to depend upon the Diaphragme alone the Second to require a concurrence of the Intercostal Muscles of which the interior serve to contract and the Exterior to dilate the Chest and the last to be effected by the Diaphragme Intercostal and Pectoral Muscles all being set a work and combining together to the motion And as for Respiration voluntary such as we can at pleasure suppress accelerate or retard that is manifestly by the help of the Intercostal Muscles there being no other instruments of Motion voluntary but the Muscles and no other Muscles immediately conducing to the contraction and dilatation of the breast ex arbitrio nostro but the Intercostal Concerning the Third viz. The Final Cause or Use of Respiration The most General opinion to omit all others as less considerable is The Final Cause of Respiration not the Refrigeration of the Heart or Vital Flame but the subtiliation of the blood which by the admistion of Aer is made the more convenient Fewell for the Lamp of life and matter of the Vital Spirits that the principal use of Respiration is for the Refrigeration of the Heart Which though very ancient and plausible is rather meerly Conjectural than Areopagitical or demonstrative For 1 AS aer over-hot is injurious to the heart so is aer over-cold and as
bend the member by Contracting it self and the other by its contraction doth extend it and both extend each other successively that which is contracted doth alwayes act and that which is extended doth not act but suffer and is transferred with the part moved But here we are to except some Muscles which seem so sufficient to the motion of the part into which they are inserted How Circular Muscles are Contracted as to have no need of Antagonists as all Circular muscles whose motion is easily understood from the mathematical principles premised For since a Circular muscle hath circular Fibres and that all contraction is made secundum continuitatem lineae it followes that such muscles shut the part to which they are affixed by contracting themselves toward their Center as may be observed in the Sphincters of the Bladder and Fundament and in the Round muscle of the Eye-lids Onely it may be enquired Why those Sphincters have no Antagonists Why the Sphincters have no Antagonists as the Clausor Palpebrarum seems to have the Elevator opening the eye-lids as the Clausor shuts them Whereof the Reason certainly is this that both the Bladder and Fundament are not opened by muscles but by the quantity of Excrements contained in them which being pressed or detruded downward by the Diaphragme and muscles of the Abdomen force open the Sphincters by extending their Fibers from the Centre to the Circumference so that to speak strictly the excretion of the Urine and of the Excrements of the belly are not actions immediately voluntary as the opening of the Eye-lids is And this is all we thought necessary to be said concerning the Use of the muscles Conclusion in general and concerning the admirable Geometry observed by Nature in the Fabrique of them Should we extend our discourse to the accommodation of the Figure and motion of each particular muscle in the whole body to the Geometrical and Architectonical principles premised as we should abuse your Patience so should we disparage your Capacity of making use of the same Clue for your guidance through the whole Labyrinth of Voluntary Motion that we have put into your hands for your more easily entering into it We shall conclude therefore with this due acknowledgment that the Omniscient Creator hath made all things as in the Greater World so also in the Lesser Man in Number Weight and Measure THE CONTENTS Exercitation the First Of Nutrition A Art 1. Nutrition and Generation one and the same Act of the Soul or Virtue Formative fol. 1 2. As well in respect of the Matter as of the Efficient 2 3. The Necessity of Nutrition twofold viz. Augmentation and Conservation 3 4. The vital Flame the Efficient Cause of the Consumption of the substance of the parts 4 5. The Matter thereby consumed not the solid substance of the parts but the Fluid and chiefly the Blood and Spirits 5 6. The Manner how they are consumed is by contitinual Dispersion 6 7. And in what Quantity 7 8. The Efficient cause of their Renovation what 8 9. And what the Material 9 10. And the Manner how they are renovated 10 11. A Consectary of the twofold Expence of the Chyle ibid. Exercitation the Second Of Chylification Art 1. The Order of the meat in the stomach 11 2. The posture of the stomach in Concoction ibid. 3. The Dissolution of the meat by an Acid Humor found in the stomach 12 4. Which causeth a certain Fermentation of the Chyle therein 13 5. All parts of the Aliment not chylified at once but successiyely and the first chylified first discharged into the Guts 14 6. The Time required to perfect Chylification various according to divers respects ibid. Exercitation the Third Of the journey of the Chyle Art 1. The traduction of the Chyle from the stomach and guts into the common Receptacle through the venae Lacteae 16 2. Of which there are two Kinds one arising from the Guts the other from the Glandules of the Abdomen into which the former sort exonerate themselves 17 3. But none of either kind tend to the Liver 19 4. That the Milk in the paps is not made of Blood but of mere Chyle brought thither by some peculiar vessells because ibid. 5. There are no convenient conduits by which blood can be brought into the paps in sufficient quantity 20 6. Blood is not a fit nor possible Matter for the Generation of Milk 21 7. Milk and Chyle agree in all their manifest Qualities and are reciprocally convertible 24 8. That Chyle is imported into the womb in women with child 25 9. From the Auctority of Hippocrates and 26 10 Of Dr. Harvey 28 11. And from the Sympathy betwixt the womb and the paps 29 12. A conjectural description of the Chyliferous vessels tending from the paps to the womb 31 Exercitation the Fourth Of Sanguification Art 1. The most part of the Chyle is converted into Blood 32 2. Not by an Organical but Similary action 33 3. Whose primary Efficient is not the Liver 34 4. Nor the veins 36 5. Nor the Heart but the Vital Spirit residing in the blood 37 6. Which alone formeth the blood in a Chicken out of the Colliquamentum 40 7. The Manner how blood is first generated in an Embryo by that vital spirit 42 8. In what part of the Conception it is first generated viz. in the Chorion 44 9. In the generation of blood what are the Concurrent Extrinsecal Causes and what the Accessory Organical 45 10. The conversion of the Colliquamentum into blood by the Heat and Motion of the vital Spirit illustrated by sundry analogous Experiments and Observations 46 11. That the same Agent which maketh the first blood in an Embryo doth make it èver after in an Animal during life 48 Exercitation the Fifth Of the Uses of the Blood Art 1. Blood not the general Nourishment of the body because 50 2. The contrary opinion is subject to sundry both inexplicable difficulties and irreconcileable incongruities ibid. 3. There are sundry parts into whose substance blood is not admâ—tted 52 4. Fat men generally have the least blood and lean the most 53 5. Men perishing by Famine have their arteries and veins full of blood 54 6. The blood continueth red and florid in the habit of the body 55 7. Hippocrates cured a man of extream Leanness only by profuse phlebotomy ibid. 8. The blood is observed to be less unctuous and glutinous in the Arteries that carry it to the parts than in the veins that return it from them 56 9. There is a manifest Dissimilitude betwixt the blood and sundry parts of the body ibid. 10. The progress of Nutrition is from crudity to Fusion and Volatility not retrograde from Volatility to Fixation and so the Aliment ought to be more crude or fixed than the parts to be nourished 57 11. The blood it self is nourished and consumes the substance of the solid parts and therefore cannot be their nourishment 58 12. The First Matter of
which the parts are made is not blood but a certain liquid juice very like the White of an Egg. 60 13. Nevertheless blood may be the nourishment of such parts whose substance is mostly Sanguineous and what those are 61 14. The Manner how the Vital Heat is conserved and the vital spirits continually recruited ex Sanguine 62 15. The Reason of the Mication or panting Motion of the blood in the Arteries 64 Exercitation the Sixth Of the Motion of the Blood its Conditions and Causes Art 1. The Method of the whole Chapter 66 2. That the Motion of the Blood is Circular ibid. 3. From the vena Cava into the right ventricle of the Heart 67 4. From the right ventricle by the vena arteriosa into the Lungs ibid. 5. From the Lungs through the Arteria venosa into the Left ventricle ibid. 6. From the Left ventricle into the Great Artery and thence into the smaller arteries 68 7. From the smallest Arteries through the substance of the Flesh into the smallest veins ibid. 8. How the New-made blood is circulated with the old 69 9. That more blood passeth through the Heart in an hour than can be supplied from the Chyle in several dayes ibid. 10. The Necessity of this Circulation inferred from three Considerations viz. 70 11 The Quantity of blood contained in the Heart in its Diastole 71 12 The Quantity expelled out of it in its Systole ibid. 13 The Number of Pulses in an hour 72 11. That the Circulation is Universal in all the Arteries and veins of the body 73 12. But after a peculiar manner in an Infant unborn 75 13. That this Motion of the blood is Continual 76 14. Vehement 77 15. Swift ibid. 16. Of equal velocity in the Arteries and Veins 78 17. The blood not the Cause of its own Motion in respect of any Motive Faculty inhaerent in it 80 18. Nor in respect of its Ebullition ibid. 19. Nor of its Rarefaction 81 20. But of its Quantity distending the ventricles of the Heart 83 21. The blood not moved by Attraction 84 22. Nor by Vection ibid. 23. But by Impulsion of the Heart endowed with a Pulsifick Faculty if any such may be admitted ibid. 24. The Fabrique of the Heart a remote Cause of the Motion of the blood 87 25. The Motion of the Heart described as consisting of two contrary motions and a Respite betwixt them ibid. 26. And the Figure of it in each 88 Exercitation the Seventh Of the Depuration of the Blood Art 1. The Genealogy of the Excrements in the blood 91 2. Exemplified in the Destillation of Wine 93 3. The several sorts of those Excrements and their Definitions 94 4. The Reason why each particular Excrement is determinately imported into the part particularly comparated for its separation 97 5. Not that it is so directed by any Intelligence or Distinguishing Faculty 99 6. Nor that it is Attracted by the like Excrement contained in that part ibid. 7. But that there is a certain peculiar Conformity of the Magnitude and Figure betwixt the minute particles of this or that Excrement and the pores of this or that part peculiarly constituted for the reception of it 100 8. Which is also the Cause of the Separation of particular Excrements in particular parts 101 9. The Differences of Colatures used by Nature in the separation of Humors in the body 102 10. The Reason and Manner of the separation of the Serum from the blood in the Kidneys 104 11. Of the Phlegmatique Excrement in the stomach and Guts 105 12. Of the Bilious Excrement's accompanying the Phlegmatique so far 106 13. Why the blood is not carried immediately out of the trunk of the Vena portae into that of the Vena Cava but through the various meanders in the Liver 109 14. And why it is transmitted through the Parenchyma of the Liver ibid. 15. That the Parenchyma is the Principal part of the whole Liver 110 16. And a kind of Streyner 111. 17. Whose particles are contexed after a peculiar manner and pores of â—ivers sorts in respect whereof the Bile is therein separated from the blood Mechanically ibid. 18. The same inferred from Four Considerables viz. 112 The equal distribution of the capillary branches of all the vessels of the Liver ibid. The Pulsation of the vena portae within the Liver 113 The assistance of that pulsation by the Hepatique Nerve 114 The Resuscitation of vitality in the blood in the branches of the vena Portae within the Liver and a new Fermentation thereof previous to the separation of the Bile ibid. 19. The various Manner of the Excretion of Excrements after they are separated and collected 116 20. The particular Manner of the Excretion of the Bile and 117 21. The Cause thereof 118 22. Paradox that we have a certain Natural Feeling wholly distinct from the Animal and independent upon the Brain 119 Exercitation the Eighth Of Respiration Art 1. The Connexion of this discourse to the precedent 126 2. The Disparity betwixt Respirà tion and Pulsation both as to their Times or Periods and as to their Uses ibid. 3. Respiration described 130 4. The Efficient Cause of Inspiration is the Dilatation of the Breast impelling the ambient Aer into the Lungs ibid. 5. And the Cause of Exspiration is only the spontaneous Contraction of the breast 132 6. The Disatation of the Chest and Lungs not from any Motive Faculty congenial to the Lungs 133 7. Nor from the impulse of the blood out of the Heart into the Lungs 134 8. Nor from the motion of the Muscles of the Thorax 135 9. But from the Diaphragme moved by a congenite Faculty ibid. 10. Yet the Intercostal and Pectoral Muscles are allowed to conspire with the Diaphragme in respiration violent and arbitrary 137 11. The Final Cause of Respiration not the Refrigeration of the Heart or Vital Flame but the subtiliation of the blood which by the admistion of Aer is made the more convenient fewel of the vital Lamp and matter of the spirits 138 12. The same exemplified in the accension of flame in wood by Aer blown out of Bellows and 139 13. inferred from the structure of the Lungs 140 14. The Use of Expiration 141 15. A Problem of the respiration of the Foetus in the mother's womb 142 16. The motion of the Brain not dependent upon Respiration but upon the Pulsarion of the Arteries 145 17. The Secondary Uses of Respiration 147 Exercitation the Ninth Of the Lympheducts Art 1. The Lympheducts a new and excellent invention 149 2. To whom the honour of their discovery is to be ascribed ibid. 3. Their Description 150 4. Differences 151 5. Origination ibid. 6. Insertion ibid. 7. Situation and Progress 152 8. Liquor deduced partly from the Arteries and 153 9. paâ—tly fâ—â—m the Nerves 154 10. The Uses of that Liquor 155 Exercitation the Tenth Of the Distribution of the Nourishment through the Nerves Art 1. That the Nerves are vessells carrying the Nutritive juice
rule of Galen holds true as certainly it doth Quod mutatur in ejus speciem à quo mutatur facessit the veins can never be thought fit to transform the Chyle into blood For their Colour is white and somewhat translucid their substance viscid membranous and bloodless they have no parenchyma and very little either of heat or spirits of their own whereas on the contrary the Blood is of a deep red not translucid of a substance fluid and interminate and abounds with heat and spirits And therefore it were vain to expect an Assimilation where the supposed Agent and Patient are of natures in all things so incompatible so contrary We deny not that the veins in some respect conduce to the Conservation of the blood but how Only as they are Organs inservient to the defence of it from external injuries and the reduction of it from the parts upon which it was newly affused out of the arteries And as for any similar Action of the veins upon the blood they have none at all yea their office of Conserving it doth consist chiefly in their inactivity i.e. in this that they are not apt to alter or deprave it as Glass-vessells are the best to conserve liquors in because they neither communicate any ill qualities of their own nor permit the like to be communicated from others to them But that which doth principally conserve the blood in the purity of its nature is the very same thing that makes it from the beginning viz. the vital Heat and Spirits derived from the Heart which by their enlivening warmth and continuall motion do not only vindicate the blood from corruption but also all the solid parts of the body and so even the veins themselves also as long as the Lamp of life continueth burning And that being once extinguished how soon alas do all parts of the body yeeld to the quick tyranny of corruption 3 Nor hath the Heart more right to this noble office of Sanguification For Nor the Heart but the vital spirit residing in the blood that borrowes all its vital heat and activity meerly from the vital blood contained in its ventricles and distributed into its substance by the Coronary arteries Of which vital influx were the Heart deprived but for some few moments it would soon become as torpid and motionless as any other part of the whole body so far is it from exalting the Chyle into so noble a Nectar as the blood is by any similar action of its owne To assure this please you take out the yet-panting Heart of any the strongest and soundest Animal and having with warm water rinsed all the blood out of the ventricles fill them again with warm Chyle or Milk and see whether it will be able to convert the same into blood Certainly you shall find none the least change to be wrought upon the liquor infused Yet the Heart is a solid and strong part and one would scarce think it probable that that action which it is supposed to performe by reason of its solid substance should be intercepted in so short a space of time Forasmuch therefore as the Heart doth in a moments time surcease its activity and desist from the work of changing Chyle into blood as soon as the vital blood is effused out of its ventricles it is as manifest as certain that the virtue Generative of blood is not radicated in the solid substance of the Heart primarily but in somthing else viz. in that very thing upon whose absence immediately that virtue is destroyed which is the vital Blood Again the dissection of Living Animals teacheth us that the vital Heat is much greater in the ventricles than in the substance of the Heart and Reason biddeth us thence to inferr that the same Heat is originally in the ventricles and but at second hand or by way of communication in the parenchyma Now if the Activity of even the Heart it self be derived originally from the vital Blood and that the vital Blood be more powerfull than the Heart we can hardly deny the same to be the Primary Cause or Agent of Sanguification unless at least it shall appear that the vital blood is less apt for such a work than the Heart But comparing the agreeableness of the Heart to such an office with that of the vital Blood to the same we shall quickly perceive which of the two hath the greater For the vital Blood is of the same species with the thing to be made or produced but the substance of the Heart is far different from it It being therefore canonical that all Naturall Agents endeavour according to their energy to assimilate to their own nature the thing upon which they act it seems of equal certainty that the activity of the vital Blood is most properly consigned to the work of Sanguification A further evidence of this may be drawn from hence that the Chyle and Blood are most intimately mixed together in the ventricles of the Heart while the Chyle doth only superficially and in transitu touch the side of them To which may be added that the Chyle makes but a very short stay in the Heart but remains constantly commixed with the Blood untill it be thereto perfectly assimilated Lastly the blood flowing in the heart arteries and veins doth exceed the Chyle of one meal in quantity at least ten times and in strength or activity an hundred for what is more potent then that spirit which enliveneth the whole body what softer gentler and more easily superable than Chyle and therefore no doubt but the Bloud doth easily obtain the victory over the Chyle and over-run it with his own nature To secure this Assertion from all doubt whatever let us have recourse to the observations of Dr. HARVEY the true Oedipus in all abstrusities of this kind of the progress of Nature in the generation of the parts of an Animal successively one after another which alone formeth the blood in a chicken out of the Colliqua mentum and we shall soon be satisfied that the First Bloud is made by the vital spirit That great man attesteth that the white of the Egge doth for some dayes after the Hen hath sat a-brood upon it retain its native whitenesse and that out of the Colliquament or White made more thin and fluid the Chick is generated without the addition of any other matter The Question then is only this How that white colour in the Colliquamentum or so much of it as the Plastique faculty converts into blood comes to be changed into red Certain it is this cannot be effected by any thing that was red before because there is no part of the Egge of or inclining to that colour and the yelk remains intire a good while after there is bloud to be seen in the punctum saliens Nor is it the Fleshy parts that communicate this vermillion tincture to the bloud because they remain white after the bloud is made out of the Colliquamentum
and transportation of it to the principle of its Dispensation For it seems the Nutritive juice is first imbibed by the small branches of the Nerves of the sixth Conjugation and those though very many being yet too few for the transportation of so large a quantity of that rich Nectar as is required to the nourishment of the whole body Nature hath conjoyned with them a vast number of other Nerves as Auxiliaries in that great work So that it is not dissentaneous to reason to conceive that by these Nerves and their Coadjutors the Succus Nutritius is carried to the brain and Spinal Marrow thence to be afterward derived to all parts for their sustenance Concerning the Fourth What is the Motion of the same in the Nervs viz. not continual nor vehement but by intervalls and slow and gentle to the brain in sleep and from it to the members after sleep viz. the Motion of the Succus Nutritius in the Nerves though it be a problem of great obscurity yet doth the light let in at the postern gate of Conjecture discover thus much that it is not continual as that of the blood in the Arteries and veins but by intervals nor violent but slow and gentle as the defect of any swelling on either side of a Nerve bound about in a living creature doth sufficiently manifest Nor is it unreasonable to conceive that in a short time after each meal immediately upon the distribution of the Chyle through the Venae Lacteae the Succus Nutritius is imbibed by the Nerves of the sixth Conjugation and by them carried to the brain and Spinal Marrow Which perhaps is the reason why alwayes within an hour or two after meat we perceive a certain dulness in our heads together with an indisposition to motion and a propensity to sleep according to that proverb When the belly is full the bones would be at rest and soon after all those vanish again and we perceive our selves more light strong and active than before our refection because then the nourishment begins to be diffused from the principle of Dispensation of outwards into the limbs and other parts of the body And with this opinion agrees that observation of Bartholinus that the Lympheducts are more plainly discernable about five or six hours after meat than at other times as being at that time more filled with the superfluities of the Succus Nutritius Nor is it improbable that the Brain and Spinal Marrow are chiefly nourished in sleep and that then the Nutritive Liquor is usually carried to them relaxing them with its sweet and mild vapours and so both inducing and prolonging sleep From whence perhaps it comes that after long sleeps we perceive our brains to be oppressed and beclouded with vapours our senses dull and the motive-faculty enervated Besides in sleep all motions of humors flowing to the patts by the Nerves seem to be suspended and yet the Circulation of the blood is certainly at that time more free and quick than while we wake So that It cannot be thought the cause of that cessation but the Nerves onely which intermit their office of distributing the Succus Nutritius during sleep And all this will appear more reasonable if we reflect upon the flux of humors in the Nerves immediately after sleep For then the Brain and Spinal Marrow re-contract themselves and become more tense so that the Nutritive liquor is from thence transmitted partly to the members to be nourished and partly to the Glandules as well such as serve for the excretion of its absolute Excrement as those that serve for the reduction of its relative viz. it s acrimonious parts that are returned into the blood for the reason formerly mentioned And concerning the Last And what the Causes of that Motion viz. the motions of the Diaphragme of the Brain and of the Nerves themselves viz. the Causes of this Motion of the Succus Nutritius we may be allowed to conceive at least untill Time shall have dispelled that Obscurity which yet surrounds this abstruse Theoreme and the industry of some more dextrous Anatomist pierced deeper into the mystery of the Nerves a subject not much lesse inscrutable than the Nature of the Soul it self which useth them as her principal instruments we hope we may have the liberty to conceive that the Succus Nutritius is not imported to the brain and Spinal Marrow nor exported from thence to the members by any Attraction similary or Elective against which we have formerly alleadged convincing arguments unnecessary to be here repeated but as the blood and indeed all other humors of the body are moved by meer Impulsion or Protrusion the immediate Cause of all motions in Nature And the Agents in this case impelling we conceive to be the motions of the Diaphragme of the Brain and of the Nerves themselves For since the Depression of the Diaphragme is generally admitted to conduce to the distribution of the Chyle out of the stomach guts Venae Lacteae common Receptacle and Ductus Chyliferi successively into the subclavian Vein by alternately compressing all those parts and so compelling the Liquor contained in them to flow upward and indeed to all other Natural motions why may not the same be thought sufficient also to the Expulsion of the Nutritive juice both out of the Praeparing Glandules into the Nerves of the Sixth conjugation and their Auxiliaries and out of them into the brain and Spinal Marrow their position being such as renders them no lesse subject to compression by the descending Diaphragme than the Venae Lacteae common Receptacle and other Chyliferous parts are If this seem difficult we may have recourse to the reason of the ascention of a liquor from the bottome through all parts of a sponge cloath or other filamentous substance as is experimented in the percolation of Aqua Calcis made by a long piece of woollen cloath whose one end is dipt in the water and the other hung over the brim of the vessel containing it which we have professedly explained in the 356 page of our Physiology and seems to be the same with the reason of the ascention of the nutritive juice of all plants from the roots to the top of the branches And as for the Motion of the Brain though it may seem to be no other but what is impressed upon the brain by the Pulsation of the Arteries ascending from the Plexus Arteriosus mirabilis chiefly to the Dura Mater and copiously disseminating themselves upon it yet since it is credible that the Pulsation of the arteries doth promote the flux of the liquor in the Nerves in other parts especially such where Nerves are either contiguous or neer enough to Arteries to participate of their impulse why may not the motion of the Brain also to which the Nerves are continued serve to ex-press the liquor out of them toward the parts wherein they are terminated Besides it is most certain that immediately after sleep the whole Brain together with the
convenient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 succendiculum or Fewell which is thereby indesinently consumed for all Fire whatever that Elementary Fire which the Aristotelians conceive to be so pure as to need no pabulum or aliment being a meer Chimera doth conserve it selfe onely by the destruction of the matter in which it is generated So that indeed we have one and the same Cause both of our Life and of our Death or to speak more properly our Life is nothing but a continuall Death and we live because we dye For so long we live as this Vestall-Fire is kept glowing and shining in the sacrary of our heart and when the same is put out either by suffocation or want of sustenance life is instantly extinguished And perhaps it was to this Euripides alluded when he said Quis novit autem an vivere hoc sit emori An emori hoc sit quod vocamus â—ivere The Matter or substance consumed we conceive to be the Fluid parts of the body The Matter thereby consumed not the substance of the solid parts but the Fluid and cheifly the Blood and Spirits especially the Blood and spirits which having in them something of the nature of oyle or sulphur are the principal succendiculum or Fewell of the vital Flame and not the substance of the solid parts at least not in that large quantity vulgarly supposed For experience teacheth that sundry Animals as Bears Dormice Swallows c. do sleep all the winter long without receiving any supply of aliment and yet have all their solid parts of their bodies as large and firme when they awake again in the spring as when they first betook themselves to their dens or dormitories nay if we may credit Naturall Historians they grow fat in this time of their long abstinence Which doubtlesse is to be ascribed to this that the flame in their heart all that time being but gently moved and burning quietly doth consume very little of their spirits and blood In like manner we have examples of Leucophlegmatique virgins who upon a decay of Appetite have â—ndured long abstinence from all sorts of aliment and yet have not been emaciated in any proportion to their so diuturn fasting So that it is more than probable that there is not so rapid and profuse an exhaustion of the substance of the solid parts by the activity of the vital Heat as Physicians have vulgarly imagined In many diseases we confesse the habit of the body is much extenuated but that is only a subsidence or flacâ—idity of the Musculous flesh caused by the defect of spirits and blood by which the same was formerly distended and plumpt up not by any deperdition of the substance of the solid parts Lastly as for the Manner how the blood and spirits and The Manner how they are consumed is by continual Dispersion if you please to have it so also the less fixed and more easily exsoluble particles of the solid parts are absumed by the vital Heat it may be familiarly explicated by the example of the oyle consumed by the flame of a Lamp Flame as reason defineth it is a substance luminous and heating consisting in a perpetuall Fieri i. e an indesinent accension of the particles of its pabulum or combustible matter and perishing as fast as it is generated so that fire is made fire and again ceaseth to be fire in every the shortest moment of time and when there remain no more particles in the 〈◊〉 matter wherein iâ— mâ—y generate it seâ—fe anew it instantly perisheth Continuall Dispâ—rsion therefore being the proper effect of Fire the matter or sewell whereon it subsisteth cannot but be in perpetuall flux or decay In like manner that we may accommodate this to our present purpose the Lamp of life consisting in a continuall accension of vital spirits in the blood as that passeth through the heart those vital spirits transmitted by the arteries to the habit of the body no sooner arrive there but as they warme and vivifie the parts so do they immediatly fly away and are dispersed into the air carrying with them many aqueous parts and perhaps some sulphureous exhalations Moreover there being in all parts of the body certain sweet and balsamicall or conserving spirits as it were affixed unto and concorporated with them the vital spirits meeting with and acting upon them do by little and little render them volatile and at length wholly disperse them whereupon the minute particles in which they did reside become mortified as excrements of the body are ejected together with the exhalations of the blood And this is as we conceive the reason and manner of the depredation made upon the parts by the vital heat If your Curiosity extend yet further and you would enquire into the Quantity of Aliment daily devoured by this Biolychnium And in what Quality or Lamp of life the acute Sanctorius will tell you that according to his statique observations men commonly avoid as much by insensible perspiration in one day as by stool in fifteen But so great is the variety among men in respect of temperament diet age exercise the season of the year and other circumstances as that no definite compute can be made of this dispence And yet we may be certain that the proportion of blood and spirits daily exhausted by the flame burning within us is very great and that the most part of the matter of occult transpirations is the vital spirits which are continually generated and continually dispersed From the consideration of the Causes and Reason of the Deperdition of substance in Animals we may opportunely progresse to an enquiry into the Causes and Manner of the Renovation or Restauration of it by Nutrition The Efficient principle or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls it certainly The Efficient Principle of the Renovation of the parts what is the very same with the Generant or Formative because as we said afore Generation cannot be without Augmentation and Augmentation is Nutrition Not that we are of their judgment who hold that Life and Nutrition are different not in re but onely in ratione for the Embryo is nourished before the Empsychosts but that we conceive that Life doth consist in a continuall accension of vital spirits out of the blood which is the pabulum of the Lamp of life and that Nutrition doth consist in the restauration of what is consumed by an Apposition and Assimilation of consimilar or congenerous matter The Material or Constitutive principle we take to be a certain sweet And what the Material mild and balfamical Liquor analogous to the white of an egge out of which the chicken is formed For since all Animals are nourished with the same out of which they were at first fabricated according to that common Axiom iisdem nutrimur ex quibus constamus and that of Aristotle eadem materia est ex qua augetur animal ex qua constituitur primùm and since they have
Spirits 4 In Animals dying of famine and men dying of Consumptions Men perishing by famine have their arteries and veins full of bloud good store of bloud hath been found in the veines and arteries Which were impossible if bloud were the nourishment of the body for then no Animal could perish by famine while it had any bloud in its vessels nor could the body be so emaciated in consumptions while the veins contain so plentifull a source for the resarcition of the parts Which reason among others induced Dr. Harvey de gener Animal exercit 52. to conclude etsi sanguis sit pars corporis non tamen huic nutriendo solum destinatur Enimvero si huic duntaxat usui inserviret nemo fame periret quamdiu sanguinis quicquam in venis reliquum habetur quemadmodum lucernae flammula non extinguitur quamdiu inflammabilis olei in eâ vel minimum suppetit 5 If the bloud were changed into Ros Cambium as they call them The bloud continueth red and florid in the habit of the body then certainely in the habit of the body and capillary veines it would appear white or inclining to whitenesse but our sense assureth that it is no less red and florid in those places than in the centrall parts of the body 6 Hippocrates hath a singular observation libr. 5. Epidâ—m â— 25. of a certain man a patient of his who being much emaciated and every day more and more consuming Hippocrates cured a man of extream Leannesse only by profuse Phlebotomy notwithstanding the most restorative aliment he could take was at length cured only by a very profuse eduction of bloud out of the veins of each arme after all other means had been in vain attempted Which would not have hapned if the bloud were the nutriment of the parts The reason of this admirable cure seems to be this There is as we have more than once declared a twofold expence of the Chyle one part goes to the instauration of the parts as being or constituting the Succus Nutritius the other supplyes the Vitall Spirits under the form of blood Now when one of these exceeds the other languishes and the too plentifull exhaustion of the Chyle upon the blood being the cause of this mans Leannesse his recovery succeeded upon a turning of the streame of the Chyle upon the parts for their sufficient Nutritive juice 7 If the blood did nourish then would Fat The blood is observed to be less unctuous and glutinous in the Arteries that carry it to the parts than in the veins that return it from them unctuous and glutinous blood be most accommodate to that use for the serum hinders the apposition of the blood and therefore Ichorous and weeping Ulcers are seldome consolidated Now the blood is observed to be more unctuous and glutinous in the veines than in the arteries in which it is commonly more diluted and full of serum but the blood is carried to the habit of the body by the arteries and from thence brought back again by the veines Which certainely is a very weighty argument against the Blood 's being the nourishment 8 Betwixt the thing nourished and its nutriment There is a manifest Dissimilitude betwixt the blood and sundry parts of the body there ought to be a certain Analogy or similitude according to that old saying Partes quaslibet alimento ipsis maximè consimili enutriri but betwixt the blood and severall parts of the body instead of this requisite resemblance or affinity of qualities there is in many things a perfect Dissimilitude or disparity For if we compare the blood with the brain the Horny coat or Humors of the Eyes the Bones tendons and other the like parts we shall find little or no proportion or resemblance betwixt them In an Appolexy where the brain is overflowed with bloud effused into the substance of it all the ideas or marks of things formerly known are quite obliterated nor doth any perception of them remain Likewise when the eye is bloud-shodden the perspicuity of the coats of the eye is changed into opacity and the transmission of the visible species through them hindered The bones also are so many wayes discrepant from the bloud that it seems impossible they should be constituted thereof And of the tendons Nervs membranes c. the same may be said 9 The Manner of Nutrition is a certain promotion of the aliment from the state of crudity The progâ—ess of Nutrition is from crudity to fusion and volatility not retrograde from volatility to fixation and so the Aliment ought to be more crude or fixed than the parts to be nourished to the state of concoction or an Exaltation of its Spirits to a further degree of activity And therefore the aliment must of necessity be more crude than the part therewith nourished For that promotion is not by any degradation or Fixation of the Spirits of the aliment but by an Exaltation or reduction of them neerer to volatility Forasmuch therefore as the Spirits already in the bloud are approached or advanced neerer to the state of volatility than those contained in the parts above mentioned certainly the bloud cannot be thought a convenient nourishment for them The redintegration of those parts ought to be expected from such nutriment as is more fixed than themselves are Otherwise how could it suffice to the solidation or firmation of them But the blood is of a more rough and grating nature and its spirits more advanced toward volatility than those residing in the solid parts and in that respect is wholly unfit to nourish them Moreover it is necessary the Nutritive juice should be sequestred from the blood before it can be opportunely brought and apponed to the parts if so to what end was it admixt to the blood at all shall we believe that Nature rather than seem idle doth make any thing only that she may unmake it again afterward 10 What is it selfe nourished cannot without absurdity be thought to be the nourishment of another The blood is it self nourished and doth consume the substance of the solid parts and so cannot be their nourishment nor can that which is the cause of the exhaustion of the solid parts be the matter of their redintegration That the blood is it self nourished is manifest from the large access of Chyle to it after every meal and that it is the cause of the exhaustion of the solid parts is also manifest from hence that the Vital Heat whose subjectum inhaesionis is the blood is the only consumer or depredator of the solid substance of the body For whatever be the effects of the Vital Heat residing in the blood as its proper and original subject the very same may be justly imputed also to the Blood itself For albeit we sometimes ascribe the actions of things to their Qualities or Faculties thereby indicating the Formal Reason or Manner by which the substance operateth yet we cannot deny
before the blood arrive at the confines of the Liver and because no other Excrement can be found therein Which consideration is alone sufficient to evince that the Office of the whole Liver is to receive the blood out of the vena portae to purge it from the Bilious Excrement and to discharge it so purified into the vena cava thence to be conveyed into the Heart As for the Manner how this excellent work of Purification is performed in the Liver for the better understanding the same we are to observe 1 That the Parenchyma is the Principal part among all those many that make up that ample and curiously contrived organ of the Liver That the Parenchyma is the Principal part of all the Liver In particular the Ligaments of the Liver serve only to establish or hold it firme in its natural position the Coat investeth it the vena Portae brings the blood into it the Capsula Communis is inservient to the distribution of the same blood through the branches of the vena Portae the Hepatick Artery and Nerve serve partly to the better promotion of the blood into all parts of the parenchyma and partly to the more quick and easie influx of the Bilis into the Porus Bilarius the branches of the Vena Cava export the blood after its purification and those of the Porus Bilarius export the Bile after its separation so that it is manifest that all these several parts are in some sort or other mechanically inservient to the Parenchyma and that the Parenchyma is the sole part wherein the separation of the Bile from the blood is made by an admirable artifice of percolation 2 That this Parenchyma is a kind of Streiner after a peculiar manner framed by Nature And a kind of Streiner for that separation which can be no otherwayes effected but by Percolation For whensoever a mixt Liquor is brought into a part and in passing through that part severed into two distinct kinds and so by distinct wayes effused out of it again we may be certain that those Liquors were severed each from other by percolation made in that part and as certain that that part is a Percolatory Instrument And since the very same is effected in the Parenchyma of the Liver while the Bile is severed from the blood we may well conclude that that separation is made by percolation and that the Parenchyma is a kind of Streiner 3 That this Parenchyma being a lax and spongy substance after a peculiar manner contexed Whose particles are contexed after a peculiar manner and pores of divers sorts in respect whereof the Bile is therein separated from the blood mechanically and having various sorts of pores whereof some are in magnitude figure and situation particularly comparated for the reception of the impure blood effused out of the extremities of the capillary branches of the vena portae and others in like manner particularly comparated for the reception of the minute particles of the Bilious Excrement and the transmission of them into the extremities of the capillary branches of the Porus Bilarius and others again particularly comparated for the reception of the minute particles of the pure blood and the transmission of them into the extremities of the capillary branches of the vena cava we say these things being so it is reasonable to conceive that after the impure blood is brought into the pores of the First sort the particles of the Bile are impelled into those of the Second and through them into the extremities of the capillary branches of the Porus Bilarius and the particles of the pure blood into those of the Third and through them into the extremities of the capillary branches of the vena Cava so as the separation of the Bile from the blood is made in the parenchyma of the Liver The same inferred from 4 considerables viz. only by reason of this diversity of its pores To encrease the verisimilitude of this Opinion there occur 4. things not unworthy a serious remark in this place viz. 1 That the Capillary branches of each sort of the vessells mentioned The equall distribution of the capillary branches of all the vessells in the Liver are distributed equally into all parts of the Parenchyma so that the Port-vein doth dispense the blood equally into all parts thereof and the capillary branches of the Porus Bilarius being likewise disseminated through all parts of the same lye ready to admit the Biliousâ—humor as fast as it is separated from the blood and the capillary branches of the vena cava being also dispersed into all parts of the same are ready to receive the pure blood as fast as it is defecated from the Bile Which is some document that this whole work of purifying the blood from the Bilious humor is performed in the Liver only Mechanically and that with the greatest facility imaginable nor is it possible for the greatest wit of man to imagine any fabrique more commodious for the effecting thereof than this of the Liver is 2 That the Vena portae The Pulsation of the Vena Portae within the Liver being entred into the body of the Liver doth acquire a certain Pulsation though weak and less perfect than that of an Artery by the benefit partly of the Capsula communis that includeth it and partly of the Arteria Hepatica that accompanieth it For being included in the same common case with the Arteria Hepatica it must necessarily be compressed in some measure by the systole thereof and again be relaxed in the diastole and by that means suffer a certain Dilatation and Compression alternately And being so compressed it must impell the blood into the parenchyma and that blood must be driven on by the next succeeding blood so as that the motion and distribution thereof is necessarily continued by that impulse without the necessity of any either Similary Attraction or Distinguishing Faculty 3 That the Hepatick Nerve may be conceived also to conduce somewhat to that Pulsation of the Vena Portae The assistance of that Pulsation by the Hepatick Nerve For that Nerve also is included in the Capsella Communis and no less distributed upon the same than upon the branches of the Porus Bilarius And therefore when the Arteria Hepatica is dilated this Nerve as being contiguous to it must be somewhat compressed and so irritated to make some small Contraction of it self which being impossible to be effected without a proportionate constriction of the Capsula Communis it comes to pass that the Vena Portae included in the same Capsula suffereth a constriction at the same time 4 It is probable that this Pulsatile motion of the Vena Portae within the Liver The Resuscitation of Vitality in the blood in the branches of the Vena Porlae within the Liver and a new Fermentation thereof praevious to the separation of the Bile doth cause some new Fermentation of the blood and redintegrate the
decayed Vitality thereof in such a proportion as may be sufficient to vivify the Parenchyma of the Liver and conduce to the more easie and speedy separation of the Bilious impurities therein especially considering that the Spirits of the blood brought in are hindered from flying away as they usually do through the thinner coats of the veins by the thickness of the Capsula Communis and so kept together to resuscitate the Mication and renew the Vitality thereof That this is so may be in part inferred from hence that the Vital Spirits can be no otherwise communicated to this Parenchyma the Arteria Hepatica being wholly distributed upon the Capsula Communis and the branches of the Porus Bilarius but never touching the Parenchyma with so much as one small surcle Now there being no vessel that brings blood into the Parenchyma but only the Vena Portae that Parenchyma must of necessity be deprived of all Vitality unless we allow the blood brought by the Porta to recover its vital disposition by the means of the Pulsation caused in the Porta and the excitement of a new Fermentation from the restraint of the Spirits For without the influx of vitall blood no part can be vivified and certain it is the Parenchyma doth receive no blood but only from the Vena Portae This Resuscitation of the Vitall Spirits in the blood brought into the Liver may be adumbrated by the example of the heart of a Viper or other Animal of like vivacity For the Heart being cut out of the Viper yet alive and placed upon a table doth a good while retain its pulsation and as that motion begins to decay by reason of the consumption of the Vitall Heat if you but drop some warm liquor upon the then languishing heart it will instantly revive and beat again untill it grows cold And such doubtless is this small spark of life re-enkindled in the blood contained in the Vena Portae within the Liver which though but small may yet be sufficient both to enliven the Parenchyma and to excite some gentle Fermentation in the blood conducible to its purification in that place Now to bring all this into a narrower circle if we reflect upon the Equall Dissemination of all the foresaid vessels through all parts of the Parenchyma upon the Pulsation of the Vena Portae within the limits of the Liver whereby the motion of the blood is made more strong and quick upon the promotion of that pulsation by the Hepatick Nerv spontaneously contracting it self after every diastole of the Hepatick Artery and lastly upon the resuscitation of Vitality in the blood and its renewed Fermentation which always precedeth the separation of any humor from the blood we say reflecting upon these things we may plainly understand with how little of difficulty the bloud is impelled into all parts of the Parenchyma and therein separated from the Bilious impurities only by reason of the Diversity of Pores in the same Parenchyma according to a MECHANICAL way or method Which was the difficulty that required to be removed When Excrements are separated they must be Excluded The various Manners of the Excretion of Excrements after they are separated and collected and therefore having investigated the manner of their separation from the bloud it is requisite that we say somwhat of the Manner of their Excretion For albeit there be no Excretion but what is effected immediately by Pulsion yet doth that Pulsion arise from various causes In particular One sort of Excretion is made by simple Propulsion as that of the Serum through the substance of the Kidneys that of the Bile into the bladder of Gall and into the Porus Bilarius and of the Phlegma into the Guts Another is from the Rarefaction of the Excrements themselves as when the Serum flowing together with the blood in the arteries is rarefied by heat and breaks forth into the habit of the body whence at length it is excluded in sweat through the pores of the skin and when the watery part of the blood is by way of Exhalation transmitted through the coats of the smaller arteries and collected in the Lympheducts And a third sort of Excretion is made meerly by the Spontaneous Contraction of the Parts Expelling such is that of the Bile out of the bladder of Gall into the ductus communis of vitious humors out of the stomach by vomiting and of the Urine out of the bladder c. So that we see there is as little need of any Attraction toward the Excretion of Excrements as there was toward their separation from the blood To Explicate the Manner of the Excretion of the Bile somewhat more particularly The particular Manner of the Excretion of the Bile we note that the Porus Bilarius is filled with that humor by its capillary branches disseminated into the greatest part of the Parenchyma of the Liver and the Vesicula Fellis by its Fibrous roots that are likewise disseminated into the rest of the parenchyma And when these two Receptacles are thus filled with this humor even to distention then being irritated or molested by that burden they contract themselves and so squeez out so much thereof as exceeded their natural capacity the Vesicula Fellis exonerating it self by the Meatus Cysticus and the Bilarius Porus by the Ductus communis out of which the excrement is convaid by the oblique insertion into the Guts Which Irritation and contraction of these Receptacles is the cause why the Bile doth not continually and by drops destill out of the Ductus communis into the Guts as the serum doth into the Ureters but is as it were â—ructated by intervalls and in good quantity at a time those concave and membranous parts never contracting themselves but only when they are above measure distended by a redundancy of the humor contained in them and the efflux of the humor depending wholly upon that their Contraction That these parts do thus Contract themselves is inferrible from hence And the Cause thereof that all sensitive parts among which the vesicula Fellis may be accounted in respect it enjoyeth a small Nerve derived from the sixth conjugation are capable of Irritation and therefore whenever they are distended beyond their natural rate or otherwayes molested they begin instantly to make some resistance and reduce themselves to their due laxity by ex-pressing what was offensive to them and if the parts thus irritated be concave membranous and fibrous it is necessary that their resistance be made by a Contraction of all their Fibers whereby their cavity is lessened and some part at least of the humor distending them is expelled The Receptacles of the Bile therefore being such parts they must have such a motion of self-Restitution upon the like occasion Digression Here me-thinks I perceive my Reader to put on the cloudy aspect of dissatisfaction PARADOX That we have a certain Natural Feeling wholly distinct from the Animal and independent upon the Brain and to
arrest me with this curious scruple saying Doth not this Irritation and spontaneous Contraction of Membranous and Nervous parts when they are molested imply a certain sense in them distinct from the sense of Feeling or Touching and independent upon the Common sense or Brain For whatever is any wayes moved by it self in avoydance or resistance of what is offensive to it must be endowed with a sense whereby to discern that offensiveness according to that rule Quic quid contra irritamenta molestias motibus suis diversis nititur id sensu praeditum sit necesse est But we are not conscious to ourselves of any such sense within us as we are of all our Animal senses whereby those parts are made sensible of their irritations and therefore it seems you have imagined one sense more than Nature hath made For the solution of this Difficulty therefore we Answer that those Motions and Actions which Physicians call Natural because they are not instituted by the Will but done even against it and cannot be moderated accelerated retarded or suppressed ex Arbitrio nostro at our pleasure and so have no dependence upon the Brain that is the Common instrument of all the senses these motions and actions we say are not yet made without some sense naturally inhaerent in the parts moved For instance we are certain that in palpitations tremblings syncopes swooning fits and other Cardiacal symptoms or affections the Heart doth variously move and agitate it self as being offended with something preternatural and noxious to it and irritated to resist and repell the same and this in respect only of some sense or feeling by which it discerneth what is incommodious and harmfull The stomach and Guts in like manner being oppressed and provoked by vicious humors instantly rise in armes and raise impetuous vomitings nauseousness convulsions fluxes of the belly and the like motions for the expulsion of their enemies and as we have it not in our power to excite or suppress those commotions so have we no particular cognisance of any such sense which should extimulate those parts to begin and continue them Truly we cannot but wonder as oft as we observe the effects of Antimony infused in wine and taken into the stomach It is not our Tast that doth distinguish the tincture of the Antimony from the wine nor are we sensible of any disagreeableness therein to our nature while we are swallowing it down and yet in the stomack there is a certain sense that discerns the offensivenesse of that draught and quickly engageth the stomach to raise and contract it self and to eject it again by vomiting nor will it ever cease till it be wholly discharged Consider how even the Flesh it self doth presently distinguish a poysonous puncture from a simple one and how soon it contracteth condenseth and fortifieth it selfe to expell the venome whereupon ensue swelling inflammation and great pain in the part pricked as is observed in the stinging of Bees and Hornets and Scorpions and the biting of Spiders Vipers and other venenate Animals and all this meerly from some sense which teacheth the flesh that difference and excites it to make resistence Consider further how the Contorsion Falling downe Ascent suffocation and other violent Agitations of the Womb in women proceed not from the brain or Common sense but from a Natural sense inhaerent in that part without which it could not be provoked to those impetuous strivings and motions For whatever is wholly destitute of fense is wholly uncapable also of being irritated to performe any action or motion in order to its safety Nor can we indeed otherwise discern what is Animate and sentient from what is Inanimate and void of sense but only by some Motion excited in it by something molesting and irritating it which Motion doth continually both follow and argue sense To evince this Natural sense yet further we shall thus reason We find in our selves that we have Five External Senses by which we perceive objects without us but because we do not perceive our perception by the same sense by which we perceive objects for we see with our eyes but do not by them perceive that we see but by the mediation of another internal sense or sensitive organ the Brain by which we judge of all objects offered to the External senses therefore is it manifest that the common sensory is the Brain which together with all its Nerves and external organs annexed to those nerves ought to be held the adequate Instrument of sensation And we may fitly resemble it to a sensitive Root which shooteth forth many Fibers or strings whereof one doth see another hear a third tast a fourth smell and the fifth feel Nevertheless As Experience assureth us that there are some Motions and Actions in us whose regiment or moderation is no ways dependent upon the Brain and therefore by contradistinction to voluntary or Animal motions and actions they are named Natural So also doth Reason teach us that we have a certain sense of Feeling which is not referrible to the Common sense nor communicated to the Brain and of which we take no cognisance but by the various effects and commotions that it causeth in our bodyes For in this Sense we do not perceive that we feel but as it fares with men distracted or otherwise agitated with any violent passion of the Mind who neither feel pain nor take notice of objects offered to their senses so is it with us in this Sense which operating without our knowledge is therefore to be distinguished from the Animal sense and may be properly enough called a Sensation without Sense And certainly such as this is that sense observed in Zoophyâ—es or Plant-Animals as the sensitive Plant the Boramets or Vegetable Lamb of Tartary Sponges c. We know there are many Animals that have both sense and motion and yet have no brain or Commonâ—sense as Earthworms Caterpillers Silkworms c and that there are some Natural Actions in us which are performed without the influence or help of the brain As Physitians therefore teach us to distinguish such actions Natural from actions Animal why may not we with equall reason distinguish the Feeling Natural from the Feeling Animal so as to refer one to the brain the other not We know moreover that it is one thing for a Muscle to be moved or contracted Spontaneously as in Convulsion and another for it to be moved Voluntarily or with various regulated contractions and relaxations in order to the performance of some action intended as Progression or Apprehension The Muscles certainly or Motory-Organs are in cramps and convulsions moved spontaneously upon their irritation by some acrimonious vapours or other injurious cause no otherwise than the body of a Fowl is moved after the head is cut off For as the body is tumbled up and down and agitated by various convulsive motions of the feet and wings yet such as are wholly confused and irregular and of no effect
humors which passeth through the habit of the body but that it should be discharged in thick clouds of exhalations in every systole of the arteries this is plainly impossible because at that time the coats of the arteries are constringed and compressed and there might be an easier egress for them in the Diastoles when the cavities of the arteries are dilated So that among these many Arguments there is not one but doth clearly detect and throughly refute the Error of those Men who have confounded the Uses of the Arteries and Lungs of Pulsation and Respiration This capital Error eschewed we may the more safely progress to explicate the nature of Respiration as a thing in sundry particulars distinct from Pulsation though perchance instituted by Nature as in some sort subservient to the vital Faculty And that we may proceed methodically it is requisite we consider 1 the Manner of Respiration 2 the Efficient Cause and 3 the Final Cause or Use of it Concerning the First Respiration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is an Action of the Breast and Lungs consisting of two contrary motions alternately successive or of two parts Respiration described viz. 1 Inspiration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which the ambient aer is impelled into the Lungs and chest at that time dilated 2 Exspiration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein the same aer is again expelled out of the Lungs and Chest those parts spontaneously contracting or compressing themselves Concerning the Inspiration the grand Question is Whether the Breast and Lungs are dilated because they are filled and distended with the aer as a bladder is distended by aer blown into it or Whether they receive in the aer because they are dilated as a pair of Bellowes is filled with aer only because it is dilated or opened by external force To solve this difficulty in a word we say the Breast is first dilated The Efficient Cause of Inspiration is the Dilatation of the Breast impellinâ— the ambient 〈◊〉 into the Lungs before it can be filled with aer and that Dilatation or heaving up of the brest is the cause of the airs rushing in at the mouth and nostrills down the Aspera Arteria or wind-pipe into the Lungs For since there is no vacuity at least no Coacervate one in the world no body can be moved out of its place but the next body must give way and the next to that likewise give back till such a part of space as is adequate to the dimensions of the body first moved be made to receive it and the space which it abandoned be again fully possessed by another body succeeding into it we say since this is necessary it is manifest that the aer next incumbent on or contiguous unto the Breast and Abdomen being urged and impelled by the breast while that is dilated or expanded is forced to give back and press the aer next to it which likewise drives back the next aer untill at length the compressed aer wanting room to retreat into and endeavouring to avoid further compression its own Elater ingaging it thereto rusheth into the breast and there possesseth that room or part of space which was left by the breast when it began its motion So that so much aer is impelled into the breast as is driven out of its place by the superfice or outside of the breast during its expansion or dilatation As for the Attraction of Aer into the Lungs ad fugam vacui it is a meer dream as well because all motion is by Impulsion as because Nature doth not abhor vacuity primario or ex se In Physiolog-Epiarro-Gassendo-Charltoniae lâ—b 1. cap. 5 pag. 40. but only ex Accidente or in respect of the confluxibility of the insensible particles of Fluid bodyes as we have elsewhere amply demonstrated And if there were any Cause to be found that might blow the aer into the breast as it is blown into a bladder so as to distend it or at least if the aer could be conceived to enter into the breast spontaneously or of its own accord without impulsion so as to force or heave up the same then indeed would the Comparison betwixt the dilatation of the breast and that of a Bladder by wind blown violently into it hold good and we should not need to seek further But there being no such insufflating cause assignable and it being ridiculous to imagine the aer should spontaneously move it self so as to flow uncompelled into the cavity of the Chest as is manifest not only in dead men into whose breasts though their mouths and nostrils are wide open the aer doth not croud it self but also in living men when they at their pleasure keep their breasts compressed or hold their breath as the vulgar phrase is it seemes much more reasonable to explain the reason of Inspiration by that other similitude of the flux of aer into a pair of Bellows there being no other difference betwixt the repletion of the Chest and the repletion of a pair of Bellows with aer but only this that the Bellowes are opened by an externall force and the Chest is dilated by an internal And as for the Exspiration that is evidently from the compression of the breast and Lungs And the cause of Expiration is only the spontanâ—ous contraction of the Breast which is the naturall motion of Restitution For the Dilatation being an action whereby the parts of the Chest are distended into a position more large than is natural to them the Contraction seemes to be nothing else but a certain falling down or relaxation of the parts distended whereby they spontaneously return to their natural position and such as they hold in a dead body and this not onely in the Lungs but also in the Diaphragme which in dead bodyes is not extended downward to the stomach and guts as in inspiration but riseth upward toward the Lungs and Heart But if it be here demanded whether Inspiration or Exspiration be first we answer that it is necessary that the aer should be first inspired before it can be exspired and every ANIMAL dyes Exspirando in Exspiration Concerning the Second The Enquiry is By what cause the breast and Lungs are so dilated The Dilatation of the Breast and Lungs not from any Motive Faculty congeâ—iall to the Lungs as we have asserted And this indeed is a Difficulty not so soon resolved as proposed for besides the obscurity of the thing it self we find our selves benighted with the various opinions of Authors Some wil have that the Lungs are endowed with a certain Faculty of Dilâ—ting themselves and so elevating the whole breast as the Heart hath a pulsifick faculty by whose virtue the ventricles contract themselves in each Systole And hereupon was it that Aristotle the Author of this opinion doth compare the Lungs to a pair of Bellowes as if they did of themselves first attract the aer and then emit it again But though it be
Nerves are framed for the performance of some one Common Office it is not unreasonable to conceive that all of them are perforated more or less so as to be capable of conveying the Succus Nutritius This may be in good part inferred even from hence that the Apoplexy often ends in a Palsy in which case all Physicians grant that the Humor oppressing and obstructing the Brain is discharged thence upon the Spinal Marrow and Nerves affected which could not be unless the Nerves were capable of being obstructed by the Humor protruded or impelled into them You will reply perhaps that they are capable indeed of the influx of Animal Spirits unless their originals chance to be obstructed as in the case of the Palsey but as for any Liquor or Humor of far lesse subtility than those Spirits it is impossible they should admit it into them And we may return that the supposed Animal Spirits nor intruth the Vital ones are any where to be found in the whole body pure or sincere and without mixture and therefore if the Nerves were framed for the reception of any matter pure and distinct from all others certainly that matter must be of a grosser substance than simple and abstracted Spirits Furthermore that there are small Channels in the Nerves may be perceived by their Compression in our limbs as when we have long fate upon a hard seat or otherwise streightned our sinews for in that case we feel a certain stupor or Numbness the vulgar say their limbs are asleep in that part to which the compressed Nerves are prolonged a certain document that the free passage of some matter through them is at that time intercepted and the compression being removed there instantly ensues a kind or troublesome Tingling or Pricking as if the part were pierced with needls and this only because what was arrested and intercepted there begins again its former liberty of motion These things duely weighed we may lawfully conclude that it is not sufficiently 〈◊〉 that the Nerves are impenetrable by the Succus Nutritius only because they have no manifest cavity Second that in the dissection of an Animal alive Solution of the Second yeelding the reason why no swelling aâ—iseth in a Nerv when bound with a Ligature in a living Animal it generally happens that by reason of the extream striving and agony of the poor tortured Creature before the dissector can come either to apply a ligature unto or to cut a Nerve all the Liquor contained therein is squeezed forth into the part wherein the Nerve is terminated so that no wonder if there appears neither swelling on either side of the ligature nor any exstillation of liquor from the ends of the Nerve cut off And this Violent streyning of the Nerves in dying Animals and the squeezing of the Liquor contained in them into the parts to which they are inserted seems to be the Cause why that Lympheduct which corresponds to the Nerve bound or cut is found more full and distended than ordinary as hath been of late frequently observed And yet we have been assured by judicious and credible persons that they have seen no small quantity of the Nutritive juice exstilling out of the Nervous Chord of the Thigh in a man and presâ—ed some of it out of the Axillary Chord in Dogs Third as to the Second adding withall that besides what hath been said Solution of the Third shewing the reason why the Succus Nutritius is not found in the nerves of dead bodies dissected of the cutting of the Nervous Fibres in divers plants without effusion of the least drop of their Alimentary juice the Motion of the Succus Nutritius through the Nervs is neither Continual nor impetuous but by intervalls and gentle so as not to be perceived and that all of it being forced into the parts by reason of the strong Contention or streyning of the Nervs in the very agony of death and all impulsion of humors in the body ceasing after death it cannot seem strange that none of the Succus Nutritius can be found in the Nervs of bodies dissected after death These Grand Objections thus solved it remains that we enquire 1 What is the Principium Elaboratioms of the Succus Nutritius or where it is praepared 2 What is the Principium Dispensationis of it or whence it is immediately infused into the Nervs which convey it to the parts 3 By what vessells it is imported into that principium Dispensationis 4 What kind of Motion it hath in the distributing Nervs and 5 What is the Cause of that Motion Concerning the First What is the Principium Elaborationis of the Nutritive juice viz. the Glandules of the Mesentery of the Loins and the Thymus viz. the Parts wherein the Succus Nutritius is prepared immediately before it is imbibed by the Nervs there is good reason for us to believe that this work is effected in the Glandules of the Mâ—sentery in the Three Glandules of the Loins and in the Thymus or Glandule in the Thorax Which opinion that we may the better explain it is requisite we make a short Digression concerning the Differences and Vses of the Glandules according to the observations and consequent Conjectures of Dr. Glisson and Dr. Wharton Of the Glandules in the body there seem to be 3 sorts respectively to the Nervs whereof some are inservient to Excretion some to Reduction and some to Nutrition For though it be most true that the Common office of all the Glandules is Secernere to make some separation yet is it no less true that that separation is various as tending to Excretion in some in others to Reduction and in others to Nutrition and the Matter it self which is separated by those divers wayes of Secretion being likewise various the first sort being a meer Excrement the Second an Excrement only in relation to some parts but profitable in relation to others and therefore not to be excluded but retained and the last the true Succus Nutritius Under the First Classis of those Glandules are comprehended the Testicles the Prostates the Vesiculae Seminales the Paps in women and the Glandulae Maxillares or spitting Glandules under the Tongue all which are furnished with a peculiar Excretory vessell by which they discharge and avoid some superfluous matter brought into them by the Nervs To the Second inservient to the secretion of a humor and the reduction of it into the veins afterward belong the Glandulae Renales or Deputy Kidneys the Glandules neer the Fundâ—ment those adjacent to the Oesophagus the Parotides Axillary Inguinal c. Glandules All which receive from the Nervs a certain humor more rough and acrimonious and approaching to the nature of the blood than is agreeable with the Succus Nutritius and therefore the Nervs by the help of these Glandules discharge themselves of it and retain only the more sweet mild and profitable juice But because the Humor thus rejected by the Nervs hath some affinity to the
conjoyned net-work of its Nerves becomes more tense and firme than in sleep which seems to render it moist and lax and since that Tension cannot but in a manner ex-press or squeez forth the liquor contained in the original of the Nerves it is reasonable to conceive that the motion of the Succus Nutritius from the brain to the parts is to be imputed thereunto especially it being by us observed that the diffusion of the nourishment is chiefly soon after we awake and rise from sleep And lastly as for the Motion of the Nerves themselves nothing is more manifest than that while the Nerves and Muscles are distended in Voluntary motion the juice contained in the Nerves must be impelled or ex-pressed to the parts into which they are inserted the extension of any nervous body necessitating the flux of any liquor contained betwixt its filaments from one extream to the other But this we deliver not as doctrine but meer Conjecture Nor should we have adventur'd to deliver it but that we hope that as the singular obscurity of the Argument may incite some other more able brain to labour in the same scrutiny so it may excuse us if we have not been so happy as to light upon the knowledge of the true Causes we sought after there being among Candid Spirits not only pardon but even commendation due to ingenious Errors especially in things of Difficulty and where the discovery of Truth is to be hoped rather from Time and multiplied Observations than from the single felicity of Witt. OF VOLUNTARY MOTION Exercitation the Eleventh Of Voluntary Motion or the Use of the Muscles FRom one Use of the Nerves Article viz. the conveying of the nourishment to all parts requiring it The Inference and Method of this discourse we now transfer our contemplation to the other viz. the transmission of the Animal Spirits from the Brain the principal throne of the Soul where she judgeth of the good or evill of objects and from whence she dispenseth her commands to the Muscles the immediate and proper instruments of Motion Voluntary and here for the more perspicuity we shall take the liberty of permitting our Curiosity to exspatiate it self a while in that delightfull and ample field the admirable Art of Nature shewn in the Structure of those organs in their Variety and in the Reason of their Motions The things required to Voluntary Motion Requisites to Voluntary motion are 1 the object communicated by the sense to the judicatory Faculty or Soul 2 the Soul perceiving that object judging it to be good or evill and accordingly pursuing or avoiding it 3 the Instrumentum Mediatum by which the Soul impresseth a motive-Faculty upon the Muscles and immediately acteth toward the attainment of her end and 4 the Instrumentum Immediatum by which immediately the motion intended is executed or effected Concerning the Exciting Cause That the Animal Spirits are the Mediate Instruments by which the Soul moves the Muscles argued from or object and the primary Agent there is nor can be no dispute it being most evident that the Soul is the principle of Motion and that it is excited thereunto by the good or evill appearing in the object But concerning the Instrumentum Mediatum or that by which the Soul doth cause the Muscles to move either the whole body or some member of it in order to her embracing or avoiding the object many especially of late yeers have seemed very much to doubt To satisfie them therefore in this particular we with all the Ancients conceive that the Animal Spirits sent from the brain by the Nerves into the Muscles are the Immediate instrument of the Soul whereby she doth impress an actuall motion upon the Muscles and to evince the probability of this opinion we offer these few yet in our judgment weighty Reasons 1 Voluntary Motion being nothing the Mutation of Figure both in the Muscle and Member moved but the willing translation of the body of an Animal or some part of it out of one place into another it is necessary the member moved should measure the determinate space betwixt the Terminus à quo and the terminus ad quem and consequently that the proportion of the member moved be answerable to the proportion of that intermediate space now from that necessary proportion there ariseth a change of Figure as well in the member moved as in the Muscle moving as we shall ere long demonstrate by Principles Mathematical in explanation and confirmation of the doctrine of our Master Galen in 1. de motu Musculor cap. 8. but that Mutation of Figure in the external instrument cannot arise immediately from the Soul it self which being Immaterial can of her self produce no such effect and therefore it must arise from something more proportionate to the immediate energy of the Soul than either the grossness of the member or muscles ordained to move it will admit them to be which Something can be no other than the Animal Spirits whose subtility makes them to approach neerer to the nature of the Soul and whose sudden influx through the Nerves into the body of the Muscle causeth a swelling or distention and so a contraction thereof and consequently a change of Figure in the member 2 Since every Instrument ought to be accommodate the Quickness of voluntary motion as well to the nature of the Agent which is to use it as to the effect to be produced by the use of it and that Voluntary Motion is performed as it were in an instant and by a most swift and speedy Impulse from the soul it followeth that betwixt the incorporeal Agent the soul and those corporeal instruments the Muscles there must be some Intermediate instrument such as is capable of being so transmitted from the Brain into the Muscles with the greatest velocity imaginable and of setting them instantly a-work according to the determination and direction of the soul. Now no part of an Animal can be thought capable of such easie and expedite Mobility but the spirits which flow through the body in less than the twinckling of an eye and therefore we conclude that They are the Immediate instrument of the soul in voluntary motion according to the assertion of Galen in 4. de locis affect cap. 6. in these words Est in cerebri ventriculis Spiritus Animae primum instrumentum quo sensum motum per universas corporis partes Anima transmittit c. 3 As the Power or Faculty of Seeing doth not reside in the Eye the conquest of the acting Muscle over its Antagonist nor that of Hearing in the Eare but is imparted to the organs of sight and hearing from the soul by the mediation of Nervs and Spirits so likewise is not the Virtue Motive inhaerent in the Muscles but communicated to them upon occasion from the same soul and seems to consist wholly in the quick afflux of spirits as that by which alone they are moved Which
Galen also doth not obscurely intimate in 1. de mot Musculor cap. 8. where he saith Aequipollens musculorum motus fit quando neuter tonum Animalem habet auxiliarm non aequipollens verò cum alter solus dominatur quare necessum est ut vincat contractio istius musculi qui ab Animali Facultare adjuvatur For what can be understood by this Tonus Animalis or Facultas Animalis unless it be the distention of the conquering muscle by Animal spirits sent from the brain at the pleasure of the Soul 4 What 's the reason the swelling of each Muscle when it moveth that a muscle is never moved but it becomes more hard and swelling in the middle than before as is most evident in both the Masseter and Temporal Muscles when we chew our meat unless because it is then filled and distended with a greater gale of spirits issued out of the store-house of the Brain For it seems more reasonable that this swelling in the body of the Muscle is the Cause of its Contraction than on the contrary that the Contraction should be the cause of the Swelling as those contend who would have the motion to be performed without the afflux of spirits 5 If a Nerve be cut asunder the Muscle into which it was inserted the privation of motion in a Muscle whose Nerve is cut off doth for ever become uncapable of motion and this certainly for no other reason but because the intercourse of the spirits betwixt the brain and that particular Muscle is wholly destroyed So that we may well conclude that the Soul cannot cause voluntary motion but by the distribution of Animal spirits through the Nervs into the Muscles The necessity of Animal spirits as the Immediate Instrument of the soul thus appearing we are next to speculate the Conditions requisite in the Immediate Instrument of the Motion it self that so we may come to a clear understanding both of the structure and diversity of the Muscles and at length of the reason of their moving the members the thing at which our Scrutiny is chiefly levelled As for the requisite Conditions therefore of this last Instrument we observe 1 That in an organ of voluntary Motion is required such a Constitution vvhy a Muscle is composed for the most part of Flesh. as may render it fit to receive the Animal spirits at the pleasure and command of the soul. Which makes it manifest that a hard inflexible and bony substance is most incompetent to an instrument of motion for which reason perhaps Galen adventured to affirme that any part made hard and stiffe by a thick Cicatrice becomes unfit for motion and that it must be such a part as being soft rare spongy and flexible and distinguished with multitudes of Fibers may most easily and readily admit the Gale of spirits flowing into its substance and be by them filled or distended Which is the reason why the substance of the Muscles is for the most part Fleshy than which no part is more soft rare flexible and distendible as Galen hath observed in 1. de usu part cap. 13. 2 Lest the spirits might flow into this flesh of a Nerve indeterminately or at randome and scatteringly there ought to be such peculiar vessells or Conduits which being continued from the brain or spinal marrow quite home to the Flesh into which they are inserted may both carry the spirits thither and preserve them from straying or dispersing by the way and by which the Soul or Regulating Faculty principally residing in the brain the original of the Nervs may rule the members as a Coachman rules his horses by the rains of his bridles that we may use the same comparison with Galen 1. de mot musculor cap. 1. Now the Nervs being the only parts of the whole body thus qualified Nature most wisely inserted one or more of them into each Muscle So that from this constitution of the Nervs it appears that they make the second Essential part of a Muscle Nay according to strict truth we may adventure to say that the Flesh and Nerve are the principal ingredients required to compleat the essence of a Muscle because there are some Muscles viz. those of the Temples of the Forehead of the Eyes of the Bladder of the Fundament c. in whose bodies are neither Tendons nor Ligaments to be found but only Nervs and Flesh distinguished with various Fibres 3 Because in some Members Of a Ligament by reason of their Gravity there is a greater resistence to motion than the Musculous Flesh in respect of its softness and tenderness is able to overcome therefore ought there to be an addition of some stronger and tougher substance which being connected or united to the Flesh of the Muscle may both corroborate the same and firmly conjoyn it to the bones so as to enable it to move the ponderous member to whose bones it is fastned Now this Nature foresaw when she furnished some Muscles with Ligaments especially such as were ordained to bear great stress in moving the greater and more weighty members Which Galen most elegantly expresseth thus Ut enim ossa quae dearticulantur exactè simul ligarentur ac continerentur ne facilè in motibus vehementioribus à sese abrumperentur Ligamentum quoad maximè potuit durum atque ab injuriis remotissimum efficere oportuit ut autem ossibus à Musculis tractis promptè obsequeretur molle rursus esse oportuit atque ob id ipsum imbecillum Atqui forte quidem imbecillo ac durum molli est contrarium Quaenam igitur fuerit in his Naturae solertia quae corpus invenit quod commoditatem utramque haberet idemque ab injuriis tutum esset ex ipsad Anatome discas licet c. 12. de usu part cap. 2. 4 Besides the connexion of the Musculous Flesh to the bone Of a Tendon by the mediation of a Ligament there must be also something to render it prompt easy and agile in its motion so as to answer the celerity of the influx of the Spirits and to fulfill the command of the Soul as it were in an instant Which Nature reflecting upon superadded also a Tendon or Chord which in respect both of its subtility and of its tough and strong Contexture or substance and also of its connexion to the joynt doth make the motion more facile and quick than otherwise it could possibly be as appears in the Muscles of the Hands and Feet c. 5 That these parts named viz. the Flesh of a Membrane investing it Nerve Ligament and Tendon might no be endangered by lying uncovered or confused therefore hath Nature cloathed the whole Muscle with a proper Membrane or Coat which hath these two further Uses that it causeth the Muscles that are contiguous to slip up and down easily and without enterfearing each other and preserves the spirits immitted into the body of the muscle moved from passing quite through or dispersing themselves
of plain concernment in the explication of it such as without which our disquisition into the nature of Voluntary Motion vvould be obscure and unsatisfactory Fundaments Geometrical Principles Geometrical of necessary importance toward the understanding thereof Proposition 1. What are equal to the same are equal also among themselves è contra Proposition 2. All right lines drawn from the Center to the Circumference are equal Proposition 3. Two right lines whatsoever mutually cutting each other make at the vertex Angles equal among themselves Proposition 4. The squares of equal lines are equal Proposition 5. A right line falling upon two right lines aequidistant or parallels makes equal Angles Proposition 6. In Triangles where the Angles are equal the sides also are equal and proportional proposition 7. In a Triangle where any one Angle is greater there the side subtending that Angle is also greater proposition 8. In every Parallelogram the Complements of those Parallelograms that are about the Diameter are equal among themselves Demonstration Suppose A B C D the Parallelogram A D the Diameter or Dimetient and the supplements H B and H C. We say the supplement H B. is equal to the Supplement H C. because the Parallelogram hath for its Diameter A D and therefore the Triangle A B D. is equal to the Triangle A. C D. Again because AEGH hath its diameter A H. therefore the Triangle A G H. is equal to the Triangle A E H. By the same it is demonstrated that the Triangle H F D. is equal to the Triangle H I D. Now since the Triangle A G H. is equal to I D and E H G. equal to F D I it followes that the supplement H B. is equal to H C. Which was to be demonstrated proposition 9. If a streight Line be divided into parts equal and unequal the Parallelogram that is contained in the unequal segments of the whole Line given together with the square of that which is between the segments will be equal to the square described by the half Line Demonstration Let the right line be A B divided into equal parts at the point C and into unequal at the point E. Let from the point A to the proportion of the equal segment be made a square A C G H and from the point E on the unequal segment be drawn a parallel line E F and from the point A the Diameter or Dimetient A H and a parallelogram E F B D. We say the Parallelogram E D. with the square F H. is equal to the square A H which is proved from the Antecedents proposition 10. To make a Square equal to a Parallelogram given Let the Parallelogram be A B C D. To which to find a square equal draw a line from C to E to the proportion of G D and divide A E into equal parts into the point F. from whence make a circle A G E and continue the line C D to the point H. We say the Line C H. is the roote of the square I K C H. which is in equal proportion to the Parallelogram A B C D. Demonstration Because the Line AE is divided into equal parts at the point F. and into unequal parts at the point C and the Parallelogram contained in the unequal segments together with the square FC is equal to the square FH or FE the equal segment according to the ninth proposition precedent it followes that the Parallelogram ABCD. is equal to the square IKHC according to the 47. proposition 1. lib. of Euclid Which was intended Fundaments Architectonical out of Vitruvius Principles Architectonical of the same Concernment lib. 10. cap. 8. Proposition 1. In the Center all Gravity ceaseth so that therein nothing is either Heavy or Light 2. The power of all Motion is varied according to the ration of the Center to the Circumference 3. By how much the more remote or elonged from the Center any thing is by so much the swifter is it moved 4. By how much greater the Circumference of the Circle so much greater the Diameter and so much swifter the Motion Demonstration Let the Center be E. from which under the Diameter E F. let the weight be placed at F. We say this weight at F. doth not rest there but moveth to its Center towards C. Again if the same weight be elonged or removed to A then by reason of its greater distance from E and of the greater Circle it will be moved towards its Centre C with the greater velocity accordingly 5. Bodies equal and under the same Diameter equally distant from the Center do cutt a perpendicular Line at right Angles Demonstration In the former Scheme let one body be at B and another at A. upon the Diameter of the Circle whose Center is E. and neither of them shall move because their Gravity is equall in that proportion of the Diameter and so hasten to the Center C. with equal swiftness but because they make equal Angles with the perpendicular DE. 6. If to one of two equal bodies placed under the same Diameter and equally distant from the Center any weight be superadded that whose weight is increased shall move more strongly and make an acute Angle with the perpendicular or wholly obtain the place of the Center as in the last Scheme the weight A is encreased to the magnitude G and therefore it must move the more strongly as is evidently concluded And let these suffice for the Fundamentals To come to their Concernment in the Motion of the Muscles we observe that every Muscle hath a twofold Motion viz. one Natural wherein the Fibers of the muscle spontaneously recontract themselves after they have been extended or restore themselves to their native tenour That every Muscle hath a Twofold Contraction viz. Natural and Animal by Philosopher named the motion of Restitution common to all Tensile bodies and this is alwayes from the end towards the beginning of the Muscle according to the position of its Fibers another Animal wherein the same Fibers are further Contracted by the forcible and copious influx of Animal spirits at the command of the soul in order to the performance of some action intended That the Natural Contraction of a Muscle is not sufficient to voluntary Motion That the Natural Contraction is not the cause of Voluntary Motion but only the Animal though we allow every muscle to be made upon the stretch i.e. in an extended position is manifest from hence that betwixt each Muscle and its Antagonist there is an equal power of naturally-moving themselves toward their originals so that betwixt two Contrary forces the one drawing one way the other the clean contrary the member must be held immoveable as appears in the 5th proposit Architectonical Necessary it is therefore to voluntary Motion that one Muscle over-power the other not by reason of its spontaneous or Natural Contraction but of its impressed or Animal which depends upon the supply of spirits transmitted from the
to the parts argued 156 2. From the Atrophy or decay of Nutrition in parts affected with the Palsy and whose Nerves have been wounded 157 3. From the beneficial use of Cephalique Emplastres in Consumptions fâ—om â—lcerated Lungs ibid. 4. From the Fatness of men endowed with large open and spongy Nerves 158 5. From the roscid Humor exstilling from wounds of the joyâ—ts and sinewes ibid. 6. From the Material principle of wenns and Scrophulous Tumors 159 7. From the Matter of the seed and the manner of its pâ—eparation in the Testicles ibid. 8. From the Glutinous matter issuing from broken Bones and cementing them together again 162 9. From the Unequal Nutrition of some parts in the Rickets 163 10. Three grand Difficulties troubling this opinion 164 11. Solution of the First asserting the possibility of the flux of the Nutritive juice through the Nerves notwithstanding no manifest Hollowness be discernable in them ibid. 12. Solution of the Second yeelding the Reason why no swelling ariseth in a Nerve when bound with a ligature in a living Animal 168 13. Solution of the Third shewing the Reason why the Nutritive juice is not found in the Nerves of dead bodies dissected 169 14. What is the Principium Elaborationis of the Nutritive juice viz. the Glandules of the Mesentery of the Loins and the Thymus ibid. 15. What the Principium Dispensationis viz. the Brain and Spinal Marrow 174 16. What the Vessells importing the same into the Brain and spinal Marrow viz. the Nerves and particularly those of the Sixth Conjugation of the Brain 175 17. What the Motion of the same in the Nerves viz. not continual nor vehement but by intervalls slow and gentle to the Brain in sleep and from it to the members after sleep 176 18. What the Causes of that Motion viz. the motions of the Diaphragme of the Brain and of the Nerves themselves 178 Exercitation the Eleventh Of Voluntary Motion Art 1. The Inference and Method of this Discourse 182 2. Requisite to Voluntary Motion ibid. 3. That the Animal spirits are the Immediate instruments by which the soul moveth the Muscles argued from 183 4. the Mutation of Figure both in the Muscle and Member moved ibid. 5. the Quickness of voluntary Motion 184 6. the Conquest of the acting Muscle over its Antagonist 187 7. the swelling of each Muscle when it moveth 188 8. and the privation of motion in a Muscle whose Nerve is cut off ibid. 9. Why a Muscle is composed for the most part of Flesh 189 10. Of a Nerve ibid. 11. Of a Ligament 190 12. Of a Tendon 191 13. Of a Membrane investing it 192 14. And of Arteries and veins ibid. 15. That a Muscle is the Immediate Instrument of voluntary Motion ibid. 16. Differences of Muscles in respect of their 1 Substance 2 Quantity 3 Figure 4 Situation 5 Origination 6 Insertion 7 Parts and 8 Actions 193 17. That the Reason of the Motion of the Muscles cannot be explained without having recourse to Mathematical Principles 196 18. Principles Geometrical of necessary importance to the understanding thereof 197 19. Principles Architectonical of the same Concernment 201 20. That every Muscle hath a twofold Contraction viz. Natural and Animal 203 21. That the Natural Contraction is not the Cause of voluntary Motion but the Animal ibid. 22. That in Motion are two Terms the one Fixt the other Moveable the last of which is more or less removed from the Former according to the greater or less resistence of Gravity in the member to be moved and the vehemence of the Motion 204 23. No Motion without Change of Figure 205 24. which is Threefold respective to the difference of Angles ibid. 25. All Motion is made in one of the two Extreme Figures and how demonstrated ibid. 26. That a Muscle in Contraction is increased in Latitude and Profundity in proportion to its diminution in Longitude demonstrated 207 27. The Necessity of Antagonists Muscles 208 28. How Circular Muscles are Contracted 209 29. Why the Sphincters have no Antagonists ibid. 30. Conclusion 210 FINIS