the blood be again returned to that place where it first began that is to say to the right ear These things you may try at your pleasure cutting up one of the longer arteries as the jugular which if you take betwixt your fingers you shall clearly discern how it loses its pulse and recovers it again beats lesse or more And as these things may be tryed whilst the brest is whole so opening the brest and the lungs afterwards being collaps'd and all motion of respiration gone you may easily try it to wit that the left ear is contracted and emptyed that it becomes more whitish and that it doth at last together with the left ventricle intermit in its pulse beat leisurely and at last leave off And likewise by the hole which you may cut in the arterie you may see the blood come forth lesse and lesse in a smaller thred and that at last to wit in the defect of blood and the impulsion of the left ventricle no more will flow You may likewise try this same in the tying of the vena arteriosa and so take away the pulse of the left ear and with untying it restore the pulse at your pleasure Whence the same thing is evidently try'd by experiment which is seen in dying persons that as first the left ventricle desists from motion and pulse and afterwards the left ear then the right ventricle pulse lastly the right ear so where the vital faculty begins first it ends last Which being tried by the sense it is manisest that the blood passes only through the semptum of the heart and not through the lungs and only through them whilst they are mov'd in respiration and not when they are fallen or disquieted For which cause in an Embryon not as yet breathing Nature instead of the passage in the arteria venosa that matter may be furnish'd to the left ventricle and the left ear opens an oval hole which she shuts in young men and those that breath freely It likewise appears why those that have the vessels of their lungs oppress'd and stuff'd or those that have any losse of their breath it is present token of death It is likewise clear why the blood of the lungs is so flame-colour'd for it is thinnest that is straind through there It is beside to be observ'd from our former conclusion in order to those who require the causes of Circulation think the power of the heart to be the effecter of all things and as it is the author of transmission by pulse so with Aristotle they think it the author of attraction and generation of blood and that the Spirits are made by the heart and the influxive heat that by the innat heat of the heart as by the immediat instrument of the soul or by a common bond and the first organ for perfecting of all the works of life And so the motion of the blood and spirit its perfection and heat and every property thereof to be borrow'd from the heart as from its beginning which Arist. says is in in the blood as in hot water or boyling pottage is in the heart and that it is the first cause of pulsation and life If I may speak freely I do not think that these things are so as they are commonly believed for there are many things which perswade me to that opinion which I will take notice of in the generation of creatures which are not fit here to be rehersed but it may be things more wonderful than these and such as will give more light to natural Philosophie shall be publish'd by me Yet in the mean time I will say and propound it without demonstration with the leave of most learned men and reverence to antiquity that the heart as it is the beginning of all things in the body the spring fountain and first causer of life is so to be taken as being joynd together with the veins and all arteries and the blood which is containd in thē Like as the brain together with all its sensible nervs organs and spinal marrow is the adequate organ of the sense as the phrase is But if you understand by this word heart the body of the heart with the ventricles and ears I do not think it to be the framer of the blood and that it has not force vertue motion or heat as the gift of the heart and next that the same is not the cause of the Diastole distention which is the cause of the Systole and contraction whether in the ears or arteries but that part of the pulse which is call'd a Diastole comes of another cause diverse from the Systole and ought to go before every Systole I think the first cause of distention is innate heat in the blood it self which like leaven by little and little attenuated and swelling is the last thing that is extinct in the creature I agree to Aristotles instance of pottage or milk in so far as he thinks that elevation or depression of the blood does not come of vapours or exhalations or Spirits rais'd into a vaporous or eareal form nor is not caus'd by any external agent but by the regulating of Nature an internal principle Nor is the heart as some think like a charcoal-fire like a hot Kettle the beginning of heat and blood but rather the blood delivers that heat which it has receiv'd to the heart as likewise to all the rest of the parts as being the hottest of all Therefore arteries and the coronal veins are assign'd to the heart for that use which they are assign'd to the rest of the parts to wit for influx of heat for the entertaining and conservation of it therefore all the hotter parts how much more sanguine they are and more abundant with blood they are said convertibly so to be and thus the heart having signall concavities is to be thought the Ware-house continuall fire and fountain of the blood not because of the corpulency of it but because of the blood which it contains like a hot Kettle as in the same manner the spleen lungs an other parts are thought hot because they have many veins or vessels containing blood And after this manner do I believe that the native heat call'd innate to be the first efficient cause of pulse as likewise to be the common instrument of all operations This as yet I do not constantly aver but propound it as a Thesis I would fain know what may be objected by good and learned men without scurrilitie of words reproaches or base language and any body shall be welcome to do it These things then are as it were the parts and the footsteps of the passage and Circulation of the blood to wit from the right ear into the ventricle out of the ventricle through the lungs into the left ear then into the left ventricle into the aorta and into all the arteries from the heart by the porosities of the part into the veins and by the veins
into the Basis of the heart the blood returns most spedity By an experiment any man may try that pleases by the veins let the arm be tyed as the custome is with a gentle ligature and let it remain tyed so long still moving the arm up and down till the veins all of them swell exceedingly and the skin grow very red below the ligature and then let the hand be washed with Snow or cold water till the blood gatherd below the ligature be cold enough then presently untying the ligature you shall find by the cold blood which returns how swiftly it runs back to the heart and what a change it will make in its return thither so that it is not to be wondred at that in the untying of the ligature in blood letting some have sounded This experiment does demonstrate that the veins below the ligature do not swell with blood attenuated and puft up with spirit but with blood only and such blood which can be reverberated into the arteries through the Anastomosis of the parts or the hidden Meanders It likewise shews how those that passe over snowy mountains are often suddenly seas'd with death and many such like Lest it should seem a difficult businesse how the blood should passe through the pores of the parts and go hither and thither I will add one experiment It happens after the same manner to those that are strangled and hang'd with a rope as it does in the typing of the arm that beyond the cord their face eyes lips tongue and all the upper parts of their head are stust'd with very much blood grow extreamred and swell till they look black in such a carcase untying the rope in whatsoever position you set it within a very few hours you shall see all the blood leave the face and the head and see it as it were fall down with its own weight from the upper to the lower parts through the pores of the skin and flesh and the rest of the parts and that it fills all the parts below and the skin chiefly colours it with black matter how much more lively and sprightly the blood is in a living body and by how much more penetrating it is through the porosites than congealed blood especially when it is condens'd through all the habit of the body by the cold of death the ways too being stopp'd and hinder'd so much the more easie and ready is the passage in those that are alive through all the parts Renatus de Cartes a most acute and ingenious man to whom for his honourable mentioning of my name I am much indebted and others with him when they see the heart of a fish taken out placed upon an even board imitate a pulse by collecting it self in its erection up-lifting vigoration they think that it is ampliated and dilated and that the ventricles of it become more capacious not according to my opinion For when it is gathered at that time the capacities of it are rather streightned and it is certain that it is then in its Sistole and not in its Diastole as neither when it falls weak and flagging and is relax'd it is then in its Diastole or distention and thence the ventricles become wider so in a dead man we do not say that his heart is in the Diastole because it is flagging without any Systole destitute of all manner of motion and not distended at all for it is distended properly and is in the Diastole when it is fill'd by the impulsion of the blood and contraction of the ear as in the Anatomie of living things is evident enough Therefore they understand not how much the relaxation and falling of the heart and arteries differ from their distention and Diastole that distention relaxation and constriction come not of the same causes but from contrary causes as making contrary effects and diverse as making divers motions as all Anatomists know very well that the opposite muscles in any part called Antagonistae are the causes of severall motions to wit of adduction and extension so there is necessarily by nature fram'd contrarie and divers active organs for contrary and divers motions Nor dos this efficient cause of pulse which he sets down according to Aristotle please me to wit that the ebullition of the blood shall be both the cause of the Systole and of the Diastole For these motions are sudden stroaks and swift hits And there is nothing that swels so like leaven or boyls up so suddenly in the twinkling of an eye and falls again but that rises leisurely and falls suddenly besides indissection you may by your own eye-sight discern that the ventricles of the heart are distended and fill'd by the constriction of the ears and are encreas'd in bignesse according as they are fill'd more or lesse and that the distention of the heart is a kind of violent motion done by impulsion not by an attraction There are some who think as there is no need of impulsion for the aliment in the nourishing of Plants but it is by little and little drawn into the place of that which is spent by the indigent parts so the vegetive faculty performs its work alike in both but there is a difference Calid influxive is continually requir'd to the entertaining of the members of creatures and preserving of vivifying heat in them and for restoring of the parts which suffer by outward injury and not for nutrition onely So much of Circulation which if it be not duely perform'd or be hinder'd or perverted or go too swiftly there follows many dangerous sorts of diseases and admirable symptoms either in the veins as swellings abscessions griefs haemeroids flux of blood or in the arteries as swellings boyls strong and pricking pains aneurisms tumors in the flesh fluxions sudden suffocations asthma's stupidity apoplexy and others innumerable Likewise it is not fit to tel in this place how as it were with an Enchantment many things are cur'd and taken away which were thought incurable I may set down such things in my medicinal observations and discourses of Pathologie which I have hitherto known to be observ'd by none I will conclude most learned Riolax to give you more ample satisfaction because you think that there is no Circulation in the mesentericks Let the vena porta be tied neer to the cymus of the liver in a live dissection which you may easily try you shall see by the swelling of the veins beneath the ligature that same come to pass which happens in blood-letting by tying of the arm which will show you the passage of the blood there And when you shall hear any man of that opinion that by Anastomosis the blood can come out of the veins into the arteries tye in a live dissection the great vein near the division of the crurals and as soon as you cut the arterie because it finds passage you shall see all the masse of blood emptied out of all the veins nay out of the ascendent cava too by the pulse of the heart in a very short time yet that below the ligature the crural veins parts below are only full Which if it could any way have returned into the arteries by an Anastomosis should never have come to passe FINIS
body through the arteries sense may likewise make evident You may observe when and as often as the extremities of the hands the feet and the ears are stiff and cold and are restor'd again by the influx of heat that it happens that at the self-fame time they are colour'd warm'd and fill'd and that the veins which were unseen before doe swell to plain appearance from whence sometimes when they are suddenly warm'd again the parts are sensible of some pain from which it appeats that the same which by its influx brings heat the same is it that fills and colours them but this can be nothing else but blood as was demonstrated before Cutting off a long arterie or vein any body may see this evidently by sense when he shall see the nearer part of the vein towards the heart let out no blood but the further part pour it abundantly and nothing but blood as afterwards in my experiment which I set down which I tryed in the inner jugularie veins On the other side cutting an arterie but a little blood flows from the further part but the nearer part shoots with a violent force mere blood as if it were out of a spout By which experiment it is known which way the passage is in them either this way or that way Besides you 'l know what swiftnesse there is in it what sensible motion not by little and by drops and with what violence to boot But lest any would make an evasion by pretending of invisible Spirits Let the orifice of the vessel so dissected be let down into a vessel of water or oyl for if any herial thing came out it would break out by visible bubbles for after this manner Wasps Hornets and the like Insects being drown'd or suffocate in oyl send out at last bubbles from their tail when they are dying from whence it is not improbable that they do take breath too whilst they are alive For all creatures at last when they are drown'd and stiffled in the water when they fail and sink they use to send out bubbles out of their mouth and lungs when they give up the glost Lastly it is assur'd by the same experiment That the portals in the veins are so exactly shut that air when it is blown in cannot passe much lesse blood I say it appears to the sense that neither sensibly nor insensibly neither by little nor by drops the blood is remoy'd from the heart by the veins And lest any should flye hither and say thus That this comes to passe when Nature is troubled and does act besides Nature not when she is left to her self and acts at her own freedom seeing the same things appeare in a sickly and preternatural constitution which appear in good estate of bodie it is not to be said that cutting off a vein since there flowes so much blood from the further part that this comes to passe beside Nature because Nature is molested for the dissection does not shut the further part so that nothing can get out that way nor can it be squeez'd out whether Nature be troubled or no Others doe wrangle after the same manner saying That although when the arterie is cut near the heart the blood breaks out in so great abundance immediatly yet for that cause the heart being whole and the arterie too it does not alwayes drive the blood by impulsion Yet it is more likely that all impulsion does drive something nor can there be a pulse of the container without the impulsion of something contained Yet some that they might desend themselves and decline the Circulation of the blood are not afraid to affirm and maintain this to wit that the arteries in living creatures and being according to Nature are so full that they cannot receive a grain weight more of blood and so likewise of the ventrieles of the heart But it is without doubt whensoever or how much soever the arteries and ventricles are dilated and contracted they ought to receive greater impulsion of blood and that beyond many grains For if the ventricles be so distended as we have seen in the Anatomie of living Creatures till they receive no more blood the heart leavs beating and continuing stiff and resisting it occasions death by suffocation Whether the blood be mov'd or driven or move it self by its own intrinsecall nature we have spoken sufficiently in our book of the motion of the heart and blood as also concerning the action function contraction dilatation of the heart how it is done and together with the Dinstale of the arteries so that those which take arguments from thence for contradiction seem either not to understand what is said there or else they will not try the businesse by their own sight I believe there can not the attraction of any thing be demostrated in the body but of the nutriment which by succession of parts supplies by little little that which is lost as the oyl of a lamp by the flame Whence that is the first comon organ of all sensible attraction impulsion which has the nature of a nerve or of a fiber or of a muscle to wit that it may be contracted and that by shortning of it self it may stretch 〈◊〉 draw in or thrust forward but these things are more fully and openly to be declared elsewhere in the organs of motion in living creatures Insomuch as to those who do still reject the Circulation because they neither see the efficient nor finall cause of it There remains because I have as yet joyn'd nothing to it only to say thus much First you must confesse that there is a Circulation before you enquire for what it is for from those things that doe happen upon the circulation and allowance of it the use and profits accrewing are to be searched In the mean time I shall say so much that there are many things allowed received in Physiologie Pathologie and Medicine that no body knows the cause of yet that there are such things no body is ignorant namely of rotten feavers revulsion purgation of excrement yet all these things are known by the help of Circulation Whosoever therefore does oppose the Circulation of the blood because so long as the Circulation stands they cannot resolve Physicall Problems or because in curing of diseases and using of medicaments they cannot from thence assign any cause of the Symptomes or see that those causes which from their Masters they have receiv'd are false or think it an unworthy thing to desert opinions approved heretofore and think in unlawfull to call in question the discipline which has been receiv'd through so many ages together with the authority of the Antients To all these I answer that the deeds of nature which are manifest to the sense care not for any opinion or any antiquity for there is nothing more antient than nature or of greater authority Besides those Problemes out of Medicinall observations not to be solv'd as the Imagine to the Circulation they object
and do oppose to it the declaring of their own errours to wit that if the circulation be true there can be no revulsion since the blood is driven upon the part affected as before and so it is to be feared that there will be a passage of the excrements and blood through the most noble and principall of our entrails They do admire at the efflux and excretion when out of the same body at divers holes yea sometimes and the same hole foul and corrupt blood issues whereas if the blood were driven with a continuall flux pasing through the heat it would be mix'd and shaken together They do doubt how these and many other things that they fetch from the School of Physicians can come to pass for they seem to be repugnant to the Circulation of the blood nor do they think as it is in Astronomie that it is enough to make new Systemes unlesse you solve all scruples I thought fit to return no other answer at this time but that the Circulation is not the same every where and at all times but many things do happen from the swifter or slower motion of the blood either through the strength or infirmity of the heat which drives it by the abundance estate or constitution of the blood the thicknesse of the parts obstruction and the like thicker blood hardly finds way through narrow passages it is more strained when it passes the streyner of the liver than when it passes the streyner of the lungs It does not with a like speed passe through the thin contexture of the flesh and parenchyme as it does through the thick consistence of the nervous parts For the thinner more pure and more spirituous part is sooner streynd through the more earthy cacochymick and more tardy stayes longer and is turn'd back The nutritive part and last aliment be it the Ros or Cambium is more penetrative seeing it is to be applyed to every part whether it be to the horns feathers or nayls if being every where nourished they increase in all their dimensions for this reason the excrements in some places are voyded thickned or do burthen us or are concocted Nor do I think that there is any necessity that the excrements or ill humors being once set apart nor the milk flegm nor sperm or the last nutriment the Ros and Cambium should be return'd with the blood but that it behooves that that which nourishes should adhere that it may be agglutinated Of which and a great many other things which are to be determined and declar'd in their proper places to wit in Physiologie and the rest of the parts of Physick it is not fit to dispute nor yet of the consequences of the Circulation of the blood nor the conveniencies nor inconveniences of it before the Circulation if self be established for granted The example of Astronomie is not here to be followed where only from appearances and such a thing that may be the causes and why such a thing should be comes to be enquir'd after But as one desiring to know the cause of the Eclipse ought to be plac'd above the Moon that by his sense he might find out the cause not by reasoning of things sensible in things which come under the notion of the sense no surer demonstration can be to gain beleef than ocular testimony I desire that there may be one other remarkable experiment tryed by all that are desirous of the knowledge of the truth by which likewise the pulse of the arteries is both seen to be done by the blood and evidenced to be so If the Gutts of a dog or a wolf or any Creature stuff'd and dryed such as you see at the Apothecaries you cut away a part of it of any length and fill it with water and tie it at both ends that it is like a pudding hitting or shaking the one end of it in the end over against it by puting too of your fingers as we use to feel the pulse of the arterie above the wrist you may find every stroak and difference of the motion clearly And after this manner in every swelling vein either of living or dead you may to raw students manifest all the diferences of the pulses to the sense in greatnesse frequencie vehemency and rime For as it is in a long bladder or in a long drum all the strokes of one of the extremes is felt likewise in the other Therefore in the Hydropsie of the belly as likewise in all abscessions which are fill'd with liquid matter we use to distinguish an Anasarca from a Tympanitis If all pulses and vibrations made in one side be by touch clearly felt in the other we think it a Tympanitis and not as it is falsely beleev'd because it is like the sound of a drum and is only by flatuousnesse but because as it is in a drum every light stroke passes through it and every shake goes through the whole for it shews that there is a serous an wheyish substance within and not a tough and slimy as in the Anasarca which being thrust retains the marks of the stroke or impulsion and transmits it not Having opened this experiment there rises a most powerfull objection against the Circulation of the blood neither observ'd nor oppos'd against me by any that has hitherto written Seeing in this experiment we see that there may be Systoles c Diastoles without the egresse of the liquor who will beleeve but that it may be just so in the arteries and that in them just so as it is in an Euripus from hence thither from thence hither it may be driven by turns But in another place we have sufficiently resolv'd this doubt and now we also say that this is not so in the arteries of living creatures because continually and incessantly the right ear of the heart fils the ventricles with blood the return of which the three-pointed portals hinder and so the lefs ear fills the left ventricle and both the ventricles in the Systole throw forth the blood which the Sigmoidal portals hinder to return and that it ought therefore either passe some way and continually out of the lungs and arteries or otherwise it would at last by restagnation and intrusion break the vessels which contain it or suffocate the heart it self by distention as we have observ'd to be plain to the sense in the dissection of a live Adder in my Book concerning the motion of the blood To clear this doubt I will recite to you two experiments amongst many other of which I cold one before by which it clearly appears that the blood in the veins with a continuall and great flux runs continually towards the hearts In the internal jugular vein of a live Doe which I laid open before a great part of the Nobility and the King my Royal Master standing by which was cut and broke off in the middle From the lower part rising from the Glâ—vicule scarce a few drops did issue whilst in the mean
when it is cold We see that the passion of the mind in the administration of Phlebotomie if any fearfull person chance to sound streight the flux of the blood is stopp'd and a bloodless palenesse seases on all the superfice of his body his members are stiff his ears sing his eyes grow dim and are in convulsion I find here a field where I might run our further and exspatiate at large in speculation But from hence so great a light of truth appears from which so many questions may be resolv'd so many doubts answered so many causes and cures of diseases found out that they seem to require a particular treatise Concerning all which in my medicinal observations I 'll set down things worthy your admiration For what is more admirable than that in all affections desires hope or fear our bodies suffer severall ways our very countenances are changed and our blood is seen to fly up and down with anger our eyes are red the black of the eye is lessen'd in shamefastnesse and the cheeks are flush'd with rednesse by fear infamie and shame the face is pale the ears glow as if they should hear sone ill thing young men that are touch'd with lust how quickly is their nerve fill'd with blood erected and extended But it is most worthy the observation of Physicians why blood-letting and cupping glasses and the stopping of the arterie which carries the flux especially whilst they are doing does as it were with a charm take away all pain and grief I say such things as these are to be referred to observations where they are explained clearly Frivolous and unexperienced persons do scurvily strive to overthrow by logicall and far-fetch'd arguments or to establish such things as are meerly to be confirm'd a by Anatomicall dissection and ocular testimony It behoves him who ever is desirous to learn to see any thing which is in question if it be obvious to sense and sight whether it be so or no or else be bound to believe those that have made tryall for by no other clearer or more evident certainty can he learn or be taught Who will perswade a man that has not tasted them that sweet or new wine is better than water with what arguments shall one perswade a blind man that the Sun is clear and out-shines all the Stars in the firmament So concerning the Circulation of the blood which all have had confirm'd to them for so many years by so many ocular experiments there has been hitherto no man found who by his observations could refute a thing so obvious to the sense to wit the motion of flux and reflux by observations alike obvious to the sense or destroy the confirm'd experience of it nay by ocular testimony none ever offer'd to build up a contrary opinion Whilst in the mean time there are not wanting person who for their unskilfullnesse and little experience in Anatomie having nothing agreeable to sense to oppose to it they cavill at it with some vain assertions and such as they adhere to from the authority of Teachers with no solid supposition but with idle and frivolous arguments and bark at it besides with a great many other words and those base ones too with rayling and base scurvy language by which they do no more than shew their own vanity and folly and their basenesse and want of arguments which are to be fetch'd from sense so that they with their false Sophisticall arguments do rage against sense Iust as when the raging winds advancing the waves in the Sicilian Sea dashes them in pieces against the rocks within Charybdis they make a hideous noise and being broken and reverberated hisse and foam so doe these men rage against the reason of their own sense If nothing should be admitted by sense without the testimony of reason or sometimes against the dictate of reason there should be no question now to be controverted If our most certain Authors were not our senses and these things were to be established by reasoning as the Geometricians do in their frames we should truly admit of no Science for it is the rationall demonstration of geometrie from things sensible to demonstrate things to the sense according to which example things abstruse and hid from the sense grow more manifest by things which are easier and better known Aristotle advises us much better lib. 31 de Gen. Anim disputing of the generation of Bees says he you must give credit to your senses if those things which are demonstrated to you are agreeable to those things which are perciptible by sense which as they shall then be better known so you may better trust your sense than your reason Whence we ought to approve or reject all things by examination leisurely made but if you will examine or try whether they be said right or wrong you must bring them to the test of sense and confirm and establish them by the judgement of sense where if there be any thing feignd or not sure it will appear Whence Plato sayes in his Critias That the explication of those things is not hard of which we can come to the experiment nor are those auditors fit for Science that have no experience How hard and difficult a thing is it for those that have no experience to teach such things of which they have no experience or sensible knowledge and how unfit and indocile unexperienced Auditors are to true Science the judgement of blind-men in colours and of deaf men in the distinctió of sounds dos plainly shew Who shall ever teach the flux and reflux of the Sea or by a Geometrical Diagram teach the quantities of Angles or the computation of the sides of a figure to a blind-man or to those that never saw the Sea nor a Diagram A man that is not expert in Anatomie in so far as he cannot conceive the businesse with his own eyes and proper reach in so far is thought to be blind to learning and unfit for he knows not truly any thing concerning which an Anatomist disputes nor any thing from the implanted nature of which he should take his argument but all things he is alike ignorant of as well those things which are gathered and concluded as the things from whence But there is no possible knowledge which arrives not from a pre-existent knowledge and that very demonstrable This one cause is the chief reason why the knowledge we have of the heavenly bodies is so uncertain and conjectural Very fain would I know from those ignorant persons that professe the causes and reasons of all things why as both the eys in beholding move together every way nor particularly one moves this way and the other that way so neither both the ears of the heart Because they know not the causes of fevers or of the plague or the admirable properties of some medicaments and the causes why they are so must therefore these things be denyed Why is the Birth that breaths not till the tenth