The circulation of the blood was first taught by the unfortunate Servetus in 1553, who was burnt to death as a heretic; and, a century afterwards, demonstrated by our Harvey, who is justly considered as having discovered the wonderful mechanism of the motion of the vital fluid. There is no doubt, however, that the ancients had formed, if not a correct, at least an ingenious, idea of it. Hippocrates tells us “that all the veins communicate with each other, and flow from one vessel into others; and that all the veins that are spread over the body carry a flux and movement originating in a single vessel.” He avows that he is ignorant of the principle whence it arises, or of its termination, it Plato thought that the heart was the source of the veins, and of the blood, that was rapidly borne to every part of the body. Aristotle tells us that the heart is the principle and source of the veins and of the blood. He considered that there were two veins proceeding from this organ, one from the left side, the other from the right; the first he termed aorta: and he further maintained that the arteries communicated with the veins, with which they were intimately connected. Julius Pollux taught, in his Gnomasticon, that the arteries are the channels through which the spirits circulate as the veins propel the blood; and he describes the heart as having two cavities, one communicating with the arteries, and the other with the veins. Apuleius tells his disciples that the heart propels the blood through the lungs, to be afterwards distributed over the system. In the writings of Nemesius, bishop of Emissa, we read that the movement observed in the pulse originates in the heart, chiefly from the artery of the left ventricle of the viscus. This artery is dilated, and then contracted, by a constant and powerful harmonious action. When dilated the vessel draws towards it the most subtile portions of the neighbouring blood, and the vapour or exhalation of this fluid, that feeds the animal spirits; but when it contracts, it exhales, through various channels of the body, all the vapours that it contains. Strange as it may appear, doubts were once entertained as to the actual situation of the heart, whether it was lodged in the Michael Servetus, in his work, De Christianismi restitutione, also in the 7th book, De Trinitate DivinÂ, for which he was sentenced to the stake a very short time after its publication, gives us the following description of this important function: The blood, which is a vital spirit, is diffused all over the body by anastomoses, or inosculation of two vessels through their extremities. The air in the lungs contributes to the elaboration of the blood, which it draws for that purpose from the right ventricle of the heart through the pulmonary artery. This blood is prepared in the lungs by a movement of the air that agitates it, subtilizes it, and, finally, mingles it with that vital spirit which is afterwards retransmitted to the heart by the movement of the diastole, as a vital fluid proper to maintain life. This communication and preparation of the blood, he further states, is rendered evident by the union of the arteries and veins in this organ; and he concludes by affirming that the heart, having thus received the blood prepared by the lungs, transmits it through the artery of the left ventricle, or the aorta, to every part of the body. Great care was of course taken to destroy this abominable heretical publication, which was burnt by the common hangman in Geneva, Frankfort, and several provinces of France. The work thence became so scarce, that it is said only three or four copies of it are in existence. One of them was in the library of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. John Leonicenus relates that the celebrated Paul Sarpi otherwise named Fra Paolo, had also discovered this circulation, and demonstrated the valves of the veins, which open to afford a free passage to the blood, and close to prevent its return. This discovery, it is pretended, was made known to Fabricius ab Aquapendente, professor of medicine in Padua in the sixteenth century, and successor of Fallopius, and who communicated the fact to Harvey, then a student in that university. Some time before Harvey’s discovery, Cesalpinus had |