no use of respiration by the Lungs the Blood doth not all I may say not the greatest part of it flow through them but there are two Passages or Channels contrived one called the foramen ovale by which part of the Blood brought by the vena cava passeth immediately into the left Ventricle of the Heart without entring the right at all the other is a large arterial Channel passing from the pulmonary Artery immediately into the Aorta or great Artery which likewise derives part of the Blood thither without running at all into the Lungs These two are closed up soon after the Child is born when it breaths no more as I may so say by the Placenta uterina but respiration by the Lungs is needful for it It is here to be noted that though the Lungs be formed so soon as the other Parts yet during the abode of the foetus in the Womb they lie by as useless In like manner I have observed that in ruminating Creatures the three formost Stomachs not only during the continuance of the Young in the Womb but so long as it is fed with Milk are unemployed and useless the Milk passing immediately into the fourth Another Observation I shall add concerning Generation which is of some moment because it takes away some concessions of Naturalists that give countenance to the Atheists fictitious and ridiculous Account of the first production of Mankind and other Animals viz. that all sorts of Insects yea and some Quadrupeds too as Frogs and Mice are produced Spontaneously My Observation and Affirmation is that there is no such thing in Nature as Aequivocal or Spontaneous Generation but that all Animals as well small as great not excluding the vilest and most contemptible Insect are generated by Animal Parents of the same Species with themselves that noble Italian Vertuoso Francesco Redi having experimented that no putrified Flesh which one would think were the most likely of any thing will of itself if all Insects be carefully kept from it produce any The same Experiment I remember Doctor Wilkins late Bishop of Chester told me had been made by some of the Royal Society No instance against this Opinion doth so much puzzle me as Worms bred in the Intestines of Man and other Animals But seeing the round Worms do manifestly generate and probably the other kinds too it 's likely they come originally from Seed which how it was brought into the Guts may afterwards possibly be discovered Moreover I am inclinable to believe that all Plants too that themselves produce Seed which are all but some very imperfect ones which scarce deserve the name of Plants come of Seeds themselves For that great Naturalist Malpighius to make experiment whether Earth would of its self put forth Plants took some purposely digged out of a deep Place and put it into a Glass Vessel the top whereof he covered with Silk many times doubled and strained over it which would admit the Water and Air to pass through but exclude the least Seed that might be wafted by the Wind the event was that no Plant at all sprang up in it nor need we wonder how in a Ditch Bank or Grass-Plat newly dig'd or in the Fenbanks in the Isle of Ely Mustard should abundantly spring up where in the Memory of Man none had been known to grow for it might come of Seed which had lain there more than a Mans Age. Some of the Ancients mentioning some Seeds that retain their fecundity Forty Years As for the Mustard that sprung up in the Isle of Ely though there never had been any in that Country yet might it have been brought down in the Channels by the Floods and so being thrown up the Banks together with the Earth might germinate and grow there From this Discourse concerning the Body of Man I shall make Three Practical Inferences First Let us give thanks to Almighty God for the Perfection and Integrity of our Bodies It would not be amiss to put it into the Eucharistical parr of our daily Devotions We praise thee O God for the due Number Shape and Use of our Limbs and Senses and in general of all the Parts of our Bodies we bless thee for the sound and healthful Constitution of them It is thou that hast made us and not we our selves in thy Book were all our Members written The Mother that bears the Child in her Womb is not conscious to any thing that is done there she understands no more how the Infant is formed than itself doth But if God hath bestowed upon us any peculiar Gift or Endowment wherein we excel others as Strength or Beauty or Activity we ought to give him special thanks for it but not to think the better of our selves therefore or despise them that want it Now because these Bodily Perfections being common Blessings we are apt not at all to consider them or not to set a just value on them and because the worth of things is best discerned by their want it would be useful sometimes to imagine or suppose our selves by some accident to be depriv'd of one of our Limbs or Senses as a Hand or a Foot or an Eye for then we cannot but be sensible that we should be in worse condition than now we are and that we should soon find a difference between two Hands and one Hand two Eyes and one Eye and that two excel one as much in worth as they do in number and yet if we could spare the use of the lost part the deformity and unsightlyness of such a defect in the Body would alone be very grievous to us Again which is less suppose we only that our Bodies want of their just magnitude or that they or any of our Members are crooked or distorted or disproportionate to the rest either in excess or defect nay which is least of all that the due motion of any one part be perverted as but of the Eyes in squinting the Eye-lids in twinkling the Tongue in stammering these things are such Blemishes and Offences to us by making us Gazing-stocks to others and Objects of their Scorn and Derision that we could be content to part with a good part of our Estates to repair such defects or heal such Infirmities These things considered and duly weighed would surely be a great and effectual motive to excite in us Gratitude for this Integrity of our Bodies and to esteem it no small blessing I say a blessing and favor of God to us for some there be that want it and why might not we have been of that number God was no way obliged to bestow it upon us And as we are to give thanks for the Integrity of our Body so are we likewise for the Health of it and the sound Temper and Constitution of all its Parts and Humors Health being the principal blessing of this Life without which we cannot enjoy or take comfort in any thing besides Neither are we to give thanks alone
account thereof from the necessary motion of Matter unguided by Mind for Ends prudently therefore break off their System there when they should come to Animals and so leave it altogether untoucht We acknowledg indeed there is a Posthumous piece extant imputed to Cartes and entituled De la formation du Foetus wherein there is some Pretence made to salve all this by fortuitous Mechanism But as the Theory thereof is built wholly upon a false supposition sufficiently confuted by our Harvey in his Book of Generation that the Seed doth materially enter into the composition of the Egg So is it all along precarious and exceptionable nor doth it extend at all to the differences that are in several Animals nor offer the least reason why an Animal of one Species might not be formed out of the Seed of another Thus far the Doctor with whom for the main I do consent I shall only add that Natural Philosophers when they endeavor to give an account of any of the Works of Nature by preconceived Principles of their own are for the most part grosly mistaken and confuted by Experience as Des Cartes in a matter that lay before him obvious to sense and infinitly more easie to find out the Cause of than to give an account of the Formation of the World that is the Pulse of the Heart which he attributes to an Ebullition and sudden expansion of the Blood in the Ventricles after the manner of Milk which being heated to such a Degree doth suddenly and as it were all at once flush up and run over the Vessel Whether this Ebullition be caused by a Nitro-Sulphureous ferment lodged especially in the left Ventricle of the Heart which mingling with the Blood excites such an Ebullition as we see made by the mixture of some Chymical Liquors viz. Oil of Vitriol and deliquated Salt of Tartar or by the vital flame warming and boyling the Blood But this conceit of his is contrary both to Reason and Experience For first It is altogether unreasonable to imagine and affirm that the cool venal Blood should be heated to so high a degree in so short a time as the interval of two Pulses which is less than the sixth part of a Minute Secondly In cold Animals as for Example Eels the Heart will beat for many hours after it is taken out of the Body yea tho the Ventricle be opened and all the Blood squeezed out Thirdly The process of the Fibres which compound the sides of the Ventricles running in Spiral Lines from the Tip to the Base of the Heart some one way and some the contrary do clearly shew that the Systole of the Heart is nothing but a Muscular constriction as a Purse is shut by drawing the Strings contrary ways Which is also confirm'd by Experience for if the Vertex of the Heart be cut off and a finger thrust up into one of the Ventricles in every Systole the Finger will be sensibly and manifestly pincht by the sides of the Ventricle But for a full Confutation of this Fancy I refer the Reader to Dr. Lower's Treatise de Corde Chap. 2. and his Rules concerning the transferring of Motion from one Body in motion to another are the most of them by Experience found to be false as they affirm which have made Trial of them This Pulse of the Heart Dr. Cudworth would have to be no Mechanical but a Vital motion which to me seems probable because it is not under the command of the Will nor are we conscious of any Power to cause or to restrain it but it is carried on and continued without our knowledge or notice neither can it be caused by the impulse of any external movent unless it be Heat But how can the Spirits agitated by Heat unguided by a vital Principle produce such a regular reciprocal motion If that Site which the Heart and its Fibres have in the Diastole be most natural to them as it seems to be why doth it again contract itself and not rest in that posture If it be once contracted in a Systole by the influx of the Spirits why the Spirits continually flowing in without let doth it not always remain so For the Systole seems to resemble the forcible bending of a Spring and the Diastole its flying out again to its natural site What is the Spring and principal Efficient of this Reciprocation What directs and moderates the motions of the Spirits They being but stupid and senseless matter cannot of themselves continue any regular and constant motion without the guidance and regulation of some intelligent Being You will say what Agent is it which you would have to effect this The sensitive Soul it cannot be because that is indivisible but the Heart when separated wholly from the Body in some Animals continues still to pulse for a considerable time nay when it hath quite ceased it may be brought to beat anew by the Application of warm Spittle or by pricking it gently with a Pin or Needle I answer it may be in these Instances the scattering Spirits remaining in the Heart may for a time being agitated by heat cause these faint Pulsations though I should rather attribute them to a plastick Nature or vital Principle as the Vegetation of Plants must also be But to proceed neither can I wholly acquiesce in the Hypothesis of that Honourable and deservedly famous Author I formerly had occasion to mention which I find in his free Enquiry into the vulgar Notion of Nature P. 77 78. delivered in these Words I think it probable that the great and wise Author of things did when he first formed the Universal and Undistinguished Matter into the World put its parts into various Motions whereby they were necessarily divided into numberless Portions of differing Bulks Figures and Situations in respect of each other And that by his infinite Wisdom and Power he did so guide and over-rule the motions of these Parts at the beginning of things as that whether in a shorter or a longer time Reason cannot determine they were finally disposed into that Beautiful and Orderly Frame that we call the World among whose Parts some were so curiously contrived as to be fit to become the Seeds or feminal Principles of Plants and Animals And I further conceive that he setled such Laws or Rules of local Motion among the parts of the Universal Matter that by his ordinary and preserving Concurse the several parts of the Universe thus once completed should be able to maintain the great Construction or System and Oeconomy of the mundane Bodies and propagate the Species of living Creatures The same Hypothesis he repeats again Pag. 124 125. of the same Treatise This Hypothesis I say I cannot fully acquiesce in because an intelligent Being seems to me requisite to execute the Laws of Motion For first Motion being a fluent thing and one part of its Duration being absolutely independent upon another it doth not follow that because any thing moves this moment
supplied with Air from thence are by and by convulsed and shortly relaxed and deprived of Motion the rest that were untoucht still retaining it Nay more than all this Plants themselves have a kind of respiration being furnished with plenty of Vessels for the derivation of Air to all their parts as hath been observed nay first discovered by that great and curious Naturalist Malpighius Another use of the Air is to sustain the flight of Birds and Insects Moreover by its gravity it raises the Water in Pumps Siphons and other Engines and performs all those feats which former Philosophers through Ignorance of the Efficient Cause attributed to a Final namely Natures abhorrence of a Vacuity or empty space The Elastick or expansive faculty of the Air whereby it dilates itself when compressed indeed this lower Region of it by reason of the weight of the superincumbent is always in a compressed State hath been made use of in the common Weather-glasses in Wind guns and in several ingenious Water-works and doubtless hath a great Interest in many natural Effects and Operations Against what we have said of the necessity of the Air for the maintenance of the Vital Flame it may be objected That the Foetus in the Womb Lives its Heart Pulsses and its Blood Circulates and yet it draws in no Air neither hath the Air any Access to it To which I Answer That it doth receive Air so much as is sufficient for it in its present state from the maternal Blood by the Placenta uterina or the Cotyledones This Opinion generally propounded viz. That the Respiration of the Dam did serve the Foetus also or supply sufficient Air to it I have met with in Books but the explicit Notion of it I owe to my Learned and worthy Friend Dr. Edward Hulse which comparing with mine own Anatomical Observations I found so consonant to Reason and highly probable that I could not but yield a firm Assent to it I say then That the chief Use of the Circulation of the Blood through the Cotyledones of a Calf in the Womb which I have often dissected and by Analogy through the Placenta uterina in an Humane Foetus seems to be the Impregnation of the Blood with Air for the feeding of the vital Flame For if it were only for Nutrition what need of two such great Arteries to convey the Blood thither It would one might rationally think be more likely that as in the Abdomen of every Animal so here there should have been some lacteal Veins formed beginning from the Placenta or Cotyledons which concurring in one common ductus should at last empty themselves into the vena cava Secondly I have observed in a Calf the umbilical Vessels to terminate in certain Bodies divided into a multitude of carneous papillae as I may so call them which are received into so many Sockets of the Cotyledons growing on the Womb which carneous papillae may without force or laceration be drawn out of those Sockets Now these papillae do well resemble the Aristae or radii of a Fishes Gills and very probably have the same use to take in the Air. So that the maternal Blood which flows to the Cotyledons and encircles these papillae communicates by them to the Blood of the Foetus the Air wherewith it self is impregnate as the Water flowing about the carneous radii of the Fishes Gills doth the Air that is lodged therein to them Thirdly That the maternal Blood flows most copiously to the Placenta uterina in Women is manifest from the great Hemorrhagy that succeeds the separation thereof at the Birth Fourthly After the Stomach and Intestines are formed the foetus seems to take in its whole nourishment by the Mouth there being always found in the Stomach of a Calf plenty of the liquor contained in the Amnios wherein he swims and faeces in his intestines and abundance of urine in the Allantoides So that the foetus in the Womb doth live as it were the life of a Fish Lastly Why else should there be such an instant necessity of Respiration so soon as ever the foetus is fallen off from the Womb This way we may give a facile and very probable account of it to wit because receiving no more Communications of Air from its Dam or Mother it must needs have a speedy supply from without or else extinguish and die for want of it Being not able to live longer without Air at its first Birth than it can do afterward And here methinks appears a necessity of bringing in the agency of some Superintendent intelligent Being be it a Plastick Nature or what you will For what else should put the Diaphragm and all the Muscles serving to Respiration in motion all of a sudden so soon as ever the foetus is brought forth Why could they not have rested as well as they did in the Womb What aileth them that they must needs bestir themselves to get in Air to maintain the Creatures life Why could they not patiently suffer it to die That the Air of it self could not rush in is clear for that on the contrary there is required a great force to remove the incumbent Air and make room for the external to enter You will say the Spirits do at this time flow to the Organs of Respiration the Diaphragm and other Muscles which concur to that action and move them But what rouses the Spirits which were quiescent during the continuance of the foetus in the Womb Here is no appearing impellent but the external Air the Body suffering no change but of place out of its close and warm Prison into the open and cool Air. But how or why that should have such influence upon the Spirits as to drive them into those Muscles electively I am not subtil enough to discern Thirdly Water is one part and that not the least of our Sustenance and that affords the greatest share of Matter in all Productions containing in it the Principles or minute component particles of all Bodies To speak nothing of those inferiour Uses of Washing and Bathing Dressing and preparing of Victuals But if we shall consider the great Conceptacula and Congregations of Water and the distribution of it all over the dry Land in Springs and Rivers there will occur abundant Arguments of Wisdom and Understanding The Sea what infinite variety of Fishes doth it nourish Psalm 104. 25. in the verse next to my Text. The earth is full of thy riches So is this great and wide Sea wherein are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts c. How doth it exactly compose itself to a level or equal Superficies and with the Earth make up one spherical Roundness How doth it constantly observe its Ebbs and Flows its Spring and Nepe-tides and still retain its saltness so convenient for the maintenance of its Inhabitants serving also the uses of Man for Navigation and the convenience of Carriage That it should be defined by Shores and
a Skinny Substance or hinder the swallowing of our Meat therefore these annulary Gristles are not made round or entire Circles but where the Gullet touches the Windpipe there to fill up the Circle is only a soft Membrane which may easily give way to the Dilatation of the Gullet And to demonstrate that this was designedly done for this End and Use so soon as the Windpipe enters the Lungs its Cartilages are no longer deficient but perfect Circles or Rings because there was no necessity they should be so but it was more convenient they should be entire Lâ—â—â—ly for the various modulation of the Voice the upper end of the Wind-pipe is endued with several Cartilages and Muscles to contract or dilate it as we would have our Voice Flat or Sharp and moreover the whole is continually moistened with a glutinous Humor issuing out of the small Glandules that are upon its inner Coat to fence it against the sharp Air received in or Breath forced out yet is it of quick and tender Sense that it may be easily provoked to cast out by coughing whatever may fall into it from without or be discharged into it from within Seventhly The Heart which hath been always esteemed and really is one of the principal Parts of the Body the primum vivens ultimum moriens by its uncessant Motion distributing the Blood the Vehicle of Life and with it the Vital Heat and Spirits throughout the whole Body whereby it doth continually irrigate nourish and keep hot and supple all the Members Is it not admirable that from this Fountain of Life and Heat there should be Channels and Conduit-pipes to every even the least and most remote Part of the Body just as if from one Waterhouse there should be Pipes conveying the Water to every House in a Town and to every Room in each House or from one Fountain in a Garden there should be little Channels or Dikes cut to every Bed and every Plant growing therein as we have seen more than once done beyond the Seas I confess the Heart seems not to be designed to so noble an Use as is generally believed that is to be the Fountain or Conservatory of the vital Flame and to inspire the Blood therewith for the Lungs serve rather for the accension or maintaining that Flame the Blood receiving there from the Air those Particles which are one Part of the Pabulum or Fewel thereof and so impregnated running back to the Heart but to serve as a Machine to receive the Blood from the Veins and to force it out by the Arteries through the whole Body as a Syringe doth any Liquor though not by the same Artifice And yet this is no ignoble Use the continuance of the Circulation of the Blood being indispensibly necessary for the quickening and enlivening of all the Members of the Body and supplying of Matter to the Brain for the preparation of the Animal Spirits the Instruments of all Sense and Motion Now for this use of receiving and pumping out of the Blood the Heart is admirably contrived For First being a Muscular Part the Sides of it are composed of two orders of Fibres running circularly or spirally from Base to Tip contrarily one to the other and so being drawn or contracted contrary ways do violently constringe and straiten the Ventricles and strongly force out the Blood as we have formerly intimated Then the Vessels we call Arteries which carry from the Heart to the several Parts have Valves which open outwards like Trap-doors and give the Blood a free passage out of the Heart but will not suffer it to return back again thither and the Veins which bring it back from the several Members to the Heart have Valves or Trap-doors which open inwards so as to give way to the Blood to run into the Heart but prevent it from running back again that way Besides the Arteries consist of a quandruple Coat the Third of which is made up of annular or orbicular carneous Fibres to a good thickness and is of a Muscular Nature after every Pulse of the Heart serving to contract the Vessel successively with incredible celerity so by a kind of peristaltick Motion impelling the Blood onwards to the capillary Extremities and through the Muscles with great force and swiftness So the Pulse of the Arteries is not only caused by the pulsation of the Heart driving the Blood through them in manner of a Wave or Flush as Des Cartes and others would have it but by the Coats of the Arteries themselves which the experiments of a certain Lovain Physitian the first whereof is Galens do in my opinion make good against him First saith he if you slit the Artery and thrust into it a Pipe so big as to fill the Cavity of it and cast a strait ligature upon that part of the Artery containing the Pipe and so bind it fast to the Pipe notwithstanding the Blood hath free passage through the Pipe yet will not the Artery beat below the ligature but do but take off the ligature it will commence again to beat immediately But because one might be ready to reply to this Experiment that the reason why when bound it did not beat was because the current of the Blood being straitned by the Pipe when beneath the Pipe it came to have more liberty was not sufficient to stretch the Coats of the Artery and so cause a Pulse but when the ligature was taken off it might flow between the enclosed tube and the Coat of the Artery therefore he adds another which clearly evinces that this could not be the reason but that it is something flowing down the Coats of the Artery that causes the Pulse that is If you straiten the Artery never so much provided the sides of it do not quite meet and stop all passage of the Blood the Vessel will notwithstanding continue still to beat below or beyond the Coarctation So we see some Physitians both Ancient as Galen and Modern were of opinion that the Pulse of the Arteries was owing to their Coats though the first that I know of who observed the third Coat of an Artery to be a muscular Body composed of annulary Fibres was Dr. Willis The mention of the peristaltick Motion puts me in mind of an ocular Demonstration of it in the Gullet of Kine when they chew the Cud which I have often beheld with pleasure For after they have swallowed one morsel if you look stedfastly upon their Throat you will soon see another ascend and run pretty swiftly all along the Throat up to the Mouth which it could not do unless it were impelled by the successive contraction or peristaltick Motion of the Gullet continually following it And it is remarkable that these ruminant Creatures have a power by the imperium of their wills of directing this peristaltick Motion upwards or downwards I shall add no more concerning the Heart but that it and the Brain do mutuas operas tradere enable one another