Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	left_a	lung_n	ventricle_n	2,628	5	12.9083	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58185	The wisdom of God manifested in the works of the creation being the substance of some common places delivered in the chappel of Trinity-College, in Cambridge / by John Ray ...	Ray, John, 1627-1705.	1691 (1691)	Wing R410; ESTC R3192	111,391	260

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