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
blood passing thorough the heart into the arteries in one houre ℈ j 4000 lb 13 ℥ 10 ʒ5 ℈ j ℈ j 4450 lb 15 ʒ3 ℈ j ℈ ss 4400 lb 7 ℥ 7 ʒ5 ℈ j ℈ j 2000 lb 20 ℥ 10 ℈ ij 2000 lb 41 ℥ 8 ℥ ss 2000 lb 83 ℥ 4 ℥ j 2000 lb 166 ℥ 8 Again setting it down for a ground that the quantity of blood contained in the whole body doth amount only to lb 15. for that is according to the most modest accompt and allowing some part thereof to be consumed by the Lamp of life and as much to be supplied out of the Chyle we may inferre these 4 necessary Conclusions 1 That more blood is transmitted through the heart once in every hour than can be supplied out of the Chyle in many hours 2 That all the blood in the body is transmitted through the heart once in a quarter or half or a whole hour or in two hours at most 3 That so much is not required to the conservation of the vital Flame and the confection of vital spirits 4 That since the vessells are not broken that the blood cannot return back out of the heart nor be any wayes dissipated it is absolutely necessary that the blood must return to the heart again by the veins or be Circulated perpetually as the immortall Dr. Harvey hath demonstrated Nor is this Circulation of the blood only Particular to some Arteries and Veins as some have inconsiderately imagined but Universal or common to them all That the Circulation is Vniversal in all the Arteries and veins of the whole body throughout the whole body For though it be indeed more demonstrable to the sense in the Limbs where the vessells being ample and conspicuous admit of ligatures more conveniently than those in the Inwards yet doth observation teach us that the motion of the blood is the very same in the very Entralls also In particular that we may deduce it through the most conspicuous Arteries and veins of other interior parts beside those already mentioned the blood is carried in the Abdomen to the Testicles by the spermatick Arteries from them by the spermatick veins into the left Emulgent and vena Cava Intestines by the Mesenterick Arteries from them by the Mesenterick veins into the Ramus Mesentericus and thence into the vena Portae Spleen by the left Celiacal Artery from it by the Ramus splenicus into the vena Portae and thence directly into the Liver Stomack and Omentum by other branches of the Celiacal Artery from them by the Gastrick and Epiploical veins into the Ramus splenicus thence into the vena Portae and so to the Liver Kidneys by the Emulgent Arteries from them by the Emulgent veins into the vena cava Outside of the Heart by the Coronary Artery back again by the Coronary vein into the vena Cava Thorax to the Pleura by the Intercostal Arteries from it by the veins thereof into the vena Azygos and thence into the vena Cava Head to the Membranes of the Braine by the Carotides and Neck-Arteries which tend to the four Cells of the brain but are not therein terminated as some Anatomists have thought from them by the jugular veins into the ascendent trunck of the VENA CAVA All which is discoverable to the sense by binding those vessels in Animals cut up alive For the swelling caused in either vein or Arterie by the flux of bloud there arrested will alwayes appear on that side the ligature from whence the blood flowes Here we are to advertise that in the Foetus or Infant-unborn the manner of the Circulation of the bloud But after a peculiar manner in an Infant unborn through the vessels of the Heart is different from that we have described For the blood is not carried from the Mothers womb into the Umbilical Arteries but from the Placenta Uterina in which those Arteries are terminated into the Umbilical vein which conducteth it along to the Liver of the Foetus from whence it is transmitted by the Vena Cava into the right Ventricle of the heart Being brought thither it is transferred into the Vena Arteriosa but because the Lungs are not yet moved as after the birth in respiration and so their vessels are not dilated and contracted alternately and consequently they can neither receive the blood out of the Vena Arteriosa not impell it into the Arteria Venosa therefore hath the providence of Nature contrived and framed Two peculiar passages the one a conduit or pipe conveying the blood from the Vena Arteriosa into the Great Arterie the other certain foramen hole or inlett by which the bloud passeth from the Vena Cava into the Arteria Venosa thence into the left Ear of the heart and so down into the left Ventricle From thence as well as that from the Vena Arteriosa it is infused into the Great Arterie So that in an unborn Infant Nature useth the two Ventricles of the heart as if they were but one and this lest the infant should have his Blood too hot and adust while he wants the ventilation of the air and expulsion of fuliginous exhalations through the Lungs From the Great Arterie the bloud is sent into the Umbilical Arteries which return it to the Placenta Uterina where permeating the substance thereof it is again infused into the small branches or rather roots of the Umbilical vein by them into the trunk and at length into the Liver Vena Cava and Heart as before Having thus explained by what wayes the blood is moved in a round This Motion of the blood is it follows that we consider the CONDITIONS of that its motion Concerning which we observe that the Circulation of the blood is 1 Continuall Continual For since the Heart is continually in motion and takes in blood in its Diastole and dischargeth the same again in its Systole never intermitting that its proper action but in great swooning fits or in the very article of death it is necessary that the motion of the bloud be likewise continuall 2 Vehement as may be inferred from the hardness and distention of an arterie vehement or vein bound with a ligature For nothing can be distended to great hardness by a thin and liquid matter especially upward unless that matter be with vehemence impelled into and retained in it But this vehemence of the motion is greatest neer the heart and is afterward diminished by degrees according to the severall degrees of distance from the heart so that the extream arteries have but little pulse unless it happens that the impellent force of the heart be encreased as in Fevers Inflammations Violent exercise some passions c. Which is also the reason why the veins have no pulse the impulse of the blood being less in them than in the smallest arteries 3 Swift swift For an artery or vein being compressed by ligature will swell up and be distended as it were
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
subtile Agent the Vital Spirit or more plainly of what Use the Bloud is in Sanguineous Animals Concerning this there are for ought we know but Two opinions extant the One that the Blood is the general Nutriment of the body or Matter by which the substance of the parts is daily instaurated the Other that it serveth both for the maintenance of the vital Flame which cannot subsist without a perpetual supply of convenient fewell and for the refection of vital spirits The Former though very antient and generally embraced yet in our judgment deserveth to give place to the Latter because though the Latter be new and as it were of but yesterdayes standing yet it hath much more of probability as may be evinced by these ensuing Arguments 1 It is well known The contrary opinion is subject to sundry both inexplicable difficulties and irreconcileable incongruities that Aristotle in many places of his works hath earnestly contended Sanguinem esse ultimum totius corporis alimentum that the bloud is the ultimate or most perfect Aliment of the whole body and that the whole School of Physicians hath given its suffrage to verifie that his Tenent And yet many things not easie to be explicated and lesse easie to be reconciled one to another may be observed to attend thereupon For Physicians when in their Physiological discourses they treat of the nature of the Bloud and endeavour to make good that it serveth to no other use but only to afford Nutriment to the body they suppose it to be a substance not simple and homogeneous but mixt and compounded of Four several juices promiscuously flowing together in the same streams deducing their principal argument hereof from the Combinations of the Four First Elementary Qualities as they call them and accordingly teaching that the ingredients of bloud are the two sorts of Bile or Choler viz. the yellow and the blackish Phlegme and Blood properly so called Further of each of these different humours They make some Nutritive as assuming the whole body to be made up of them others Excrementitious and then They decree that the bloud doth consist of those diverse Nutritious humors as of Heterogeneous parts After though they allow the Phlegme to be the colder and cruder part and so capable of conversion into good and laudable blood by more intense heat and longer concoction and likewise allow the Choler to be convertible into Melancholy by adustion and blood to be convertible into both choler and melancholy by the same means yet will they by no means admit of a regression of either Choler or Melancholy into blood Now if these things be true as may well be doubted and that there is no possible regresse of Melancholy into Choler nor of Choler into laudable Blood then will it inevitably follow that all the other three juices are but only in Order to Melancholy and that Melancholy is the principall and most perfectly concocted Aliment Nay more They must grant two sorts of Blood the one the whole masse of blood contained in the veines and composed of those four humours The other the more pure more florid and more spiritual part thereof which in a stricter sense they call blood and which some will have to be contained only in the heart and arteries apart from the venous blood as deputed to peculiar and more noble Uses Now according to this distinction it is manifest that not the pure arteriall bloud is the nourishment of the body but the baser composed of diverse juices or rather chiefly the Melancholy to which as to their ultimate term or perfection the three others tend And how incongruous it is to conceive that the body is nourished either with impure juices or with Melancholy a cold dry and earthly humour as they define it is obvious to men of even the shallowest understandings 2 If the Blood were the Universal Aliment of the body There are sundry parts into whoâ—e substance the blood is not admitted then certainly no part could be nourished at which the blood doth not arrive but we see that many parts are nourished as the Brain Bones Nerves Ligaments Testicles c. to which notwithstanding the blood is not so brought as to be admitted into their substance and therefore the blood is not the Universal Nourishment We â—ay so as to be admitted into their very substance for though blood be found in those parts yet doth it not penetrate deeply into them as the Nutritive juice ought to do lib. de Alimento alimenti enim vis saith Hippocrates ad ossa usque pervenit ossium partes The blood doth indeed touch upon those parts in its running round the body and but only touch them and for this reason that all the parts may be cherished and enlivened by the Vitall Spirits which it carrieth along with it Thus in the Brain veins are no where found but disseminated upon the Membranes that are their support the Plexus Choroides and some other few places excepted Which perhaps is the reason 1 Hist. an c. 16. why Aristotle denyed any blood to be contained in the brain because it is not effused into the substance thereof as it is into the fleshy or musculous parts 3 Men that are fat and plump Fat men generally have the least blood and Lean the most have but little blood and such as are spare and lean have abundance which could not be if blood were matter of nourishment And because Lean persons have much blood therefore are they more lively couragious and active as abounding with Spirits in proportion to their great quantity of blood Hence is it also that Lean persons bear large evacuation of blood without detriment of health because their fleshy and musculous parts as being firme and solid drink up the least quantity of bloud in their pores and so there remains the more for the fewel of the Vitall Lamp Whereas on the contrary grosse and fat persons suffer great dammage by large effusion of bloud because the habit of their bodies being despoyled of Spirits and hotter bloud is filled with serous humours and so easily degenerateth into a Cachexy In like manner in a gross body where are more parts to be nourished there ought to be the more bloud to nourish them but grosse men for the most part eate much lesse than lean because they have lesse veins and being inclined to sedentary and unactive lives they consume but few Spirits For it is but a small portion of the Chyle that is converted into the Succus Nutritius the dissipation of the substance of the parts being neither so suddain nor great as hath been vulgarly conceived as we formerly explicated and the rest after its unprofitable parts are separated being brought to the heart is mostly consumed in Spirits Such things therefore as relieve the Spirits suddainly satisfie our hunger as good wine 2 Sect. Aph. 36. Whence that Aphorism of Hippocrates Famem vini potio solvit because vvine revives the
answerable to its capacity From the left ventricle into the great Artery and thence into the smaller Arteries the heart instantly contracting it self expelleth the same at least good part thereof into the Great Artery arising from the left ventricle thence into the lesser arteries and so into the substance of the flesh from whence the bloud is intruded into the capillary veins by them into the greater veins from them into the vena Cava and at length into the right ventricle of the heart there to begin the same circular progress again We say from the capillary arteries into the substance of the Flesh. From the smallest Arteries through the substance of the flesh into the smallest veins For as to those who will have the bloud to pass out of the small arteries into the small veins per Anastomoses by certain inosculations or open passages from those into these we challenge them to demonstrate to the sense any such way of entercourse or communication betwixt arteries and veins in the whole habit of the body and Dr. Harvey did the same before us when He said De Anastomosi venarum arteriarum de mot cord sang cap. 9. ubi sit quomodo sit qua de caussa neminem hactenus rectè quicquam dixisse suspicari licet And why may not the blood be as wel conceived to permeate through the pores of the flesh as water through the pores of the earth the sweat through the skin the serum through the parenchyma of the Kidneys or as the same blood through the thick substance of the Liver Nor is only that bloud brought back to the heart by the vena Cava How the New-made blood is circâ—â—lated with 〈◊〉 old which passed through it before but the stream is augmented by the accesse of fresh Chyle also imported into the subclavian branches of the same vena Cava and thence into the right ventricle of the heart For this is not only easie to be done in respect of the vicinity of the ascendent and descendent trunck of the vena cava to the right ventricle but also necessary there being no other way for the new supply of bloud to passe and that it is done this experiment doth testifie The vena cava being bound both above and below the heart all the bloud contained betwixt the two ligatures will in a very short space be discharged into the right ventricle Again the Heart seems to immit more bloud into the Great Artery That more blood passeth through the heart in an hour than can be supplied from the chyle in severall dayes in the space of one hour than the proportion of Chyle can amount to in several dayes For in most men the Heart makes more than 3000. pulses in an hour and at every systole it expells some bloud out of its left ventricle into the Aorta as may be sensibly demonstrated by this that upon a ligation of the Aorta neer the heart and an incision made betwixt the ligature and the heart you may observe some quantity of blood more or lesse to be squirted forth by the incision at every systole unlesse the heart be grown weak and languid and yet even in that case some quantity of bloud will issue forth at the hole once in 3 or 4 pulses Nay when the cone or point of the heart is cut off and the heart held upright though the ventricles be not then full yet will some bloud be squeezed out of them every time the heart contracts it self 2 cap. de mat cord sanguin and that to the distance of 3 or 4 feet as Dr. Harvey observeth As for the Quantity of bloud admitted into the ventricles of the heart when it is dilated The Necessity of the Circulation inferred from three considerations viz. and expelled into the Great Artery when it is again contracted it cannot be precisely determined For if in the same individual person the motion of the heart being sometimes more strong and swift and sometimes more weak and slow doth make the Circulation of the blood more swift or more slow proportionately certainly in the species it must be impossible to commensurate the quantity of blood passing through the heart at every pulse since there is great variety among men in respect of their different temperaments ages sexes diet exercises passions and the like all which vary the pulse and consequently the motion of the blood However that some satisfaction may be given to enquirers herein we are to consider Three things viz. 1 How much blood may be contained in the heart of a Man in its Diastole 2 How much may be expelled out of it in its Systole 3 and How many Pulses or Diastole's and Systoles the heart doth commonly in healthy and temperate men make in an hour Concerning the First the quantity of blood contained in the heart in its Diastole there are different observations Harvey saith that in a mans heart dilated he found more than two ounces of bloud Plempius affirms that he found almost two ounces Riolan will allow scarce half an ounce in the left ventricle but somewhat more in the right And Hogeland comes much lower admitting only one dragme But all men generally grant that the whole masse of blood contained in the body doth seldome exceed 24 pounds or pints and as seldome come short of 15. Concerning the quantity expelled out of it in its Systole the Second we say that in every systole is expelled either the fourth or fifth or sixth or at least the eighth part of the bloud received into the heart at the precedent Diastole Harvey supposeth at least one dragme and proves that his supposition from the suddain effusion of all the mass of blood if but the least artery be cut and because all the blood may be transmitted through the heart in the space of half an hour He thereupon concludes for certain that much blood is expelled into the great Artery at every systole Conringius also makes the same compute Walaeus and Sleyelius admit half an ounce but compute only from one scruple Hogeland acquiesceth in one dragme And Thom. Bartholinus brings it down to only half a scruple But they all agree that in the contraction of the heart the sides of the ventricles are not drawn so close together as to expell all the bloud contained in them Concerning the Third The Number of Pulses in the space of an hour we remember that Primrose reckons 700. pulses in an hour Riolan 2000 Waleus and Regius 3000. Cardan 4000 Plempius 4450 Sleyelius 4876 Bartholinus 4400 or thereabouts and Harvey about 2000 each one numbering the pulses in his own wrist Now from these three things premised we may collect how much bloud may be expelled out of the left ventricle of the heart into the Aorta in the space of one hour according to the several numerations of pulses viz. From ℈ j 3000 times repeated there arise lb 10 â„¥ 5 Of
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
various Elements or material principles as the Element of which it is generate and so not capable to be wholly changed into either the fewel of the Vital Heat or Vital Spirits when those parts of it which had their Spirits less closely and firmely united to their grosser Elements or which is the same thing which were most prone to volatility are consumed and dispersed it cannot be but that the remains or reliques thereof must thenceforth become not only useless but also incommodious to Nature and therefore as soon as may be to be rejected For the sweet and inflammable Spirits of the blood being exhausted to what use can the remaining mass serve It can be no longer the subject or residence of the Vitall Heat for the conservation whereof the blood is principally made nay if retained in the body it would rather damnifie and destroy the same noble principle the Vital Heat For the Sulphur contained in the blood doth by reason of the continuall mication and indeavour of the Spirits to fly away and disperse themselves and of the decocting activity of the Vitall Heat exercised upon it become adust and contract a manifest bitterness and acrimony and the Caput mortuum or Terrene and grosser part conjoyned with the Fixative Salt is apt to coagulate and to be pâ—trified and the Phlegma or insipid and viscid part is apt to obstruct the capillary arteries and veins and so impede the Circulation and lastly the Aqueous part or potulent matter as being apt to render the bloud too dilute and serous is wholly unprofitable These parts therefore being no longer usefull ingredients of the bloud degenerate into Excrements and ought to be sequestred from it This Generation of the Excrements of the bloud may be appositely adumbrated by the Example of Wine distilled For Exemplified in the destillation of wine as Wine is a Liquor consisting ex Elementis primiceriis of Various choyce ingredients or dissimilar parts so is the blood As the Spirits or more fugitive parts of Wine are easily separable from the more fixed viz. the Phlegme Tartar crass Sulphur c. by heat so are the Spirits of the blood easily separated from the more fixed parts of it viz. the Phlegme Salt Tartar crass Sulphur adust the Aqueous or potulent matter by the activity of the Vital Heat As the Spirits of Wine are by repeated destillations advanced to that height of Volatility or subtility as that some of them flye away and are dispersed into air in every rectification so likewise are the Spirits of the blood by repeated Circulations through the heart brought to that degree of subtility and volatility as that they cannot be longer contained or imprisoned in the body of an Animal but penetrating through the pores are exhaled by way of dry sweat or insensible transpiration And as the residue of the Wine after the Spirits are gone remains a dead mass or vappa consisting only of a Phlegme Tartar and crass Sulphur which by long heat acquireth a bitterness and acrimony so doth the residue of the blood after its Spirits are exhausted and dispersed For as we said afore the caseous and grumous parts of the blood being brought to the state of Fusion by the Vital Heat make that excrement called the Phlegma the Saline and earthly parts consociated make the Tartar which being dissolved and kept fluid by the potulent matter to which it is easily mixed make the Urine and the crass sulphur torrified by the Vital heat and inseparably floating in the serum makes the Bile or Cholerick excrement And this Diversity of parts in the blood is evident even to the sense in blood let forth of either vein or artery into a vessell For there the caseous or grumous parts which being most elaborate and brought to a certain degree of Fusion have thereby acquired a viscidity swim on the top in the forme of a whitish filme or membrane while other parts of the same kind having not attained to the like degree of Fusion and viscidity sinck to the bottome and the serous or watery impregnated with the Salt and somewhat of the crass Sulphur adust flow round about the rest Concerning the SECOND viz. the various sorts The Various sorts of those Excrements and their Definitions or Kinds of Excrements to be separated from the blood in order to its purification though what we have now said concerning their Original may seem to intimate their several Families and specifical Differences yet will it not be superfluous to observe further that all of them being Liquid fall under two General Kinds The First comprehends the More Thin Excrements which are 1 the Urine impregnated with the Tartar 2 the Sweat 3 the Tears and 4 the thin liquor contained in the Lympheducts The Other includes the Lesse Thin which are 1 the Phlegme or ptuituituous Mucus whether it be Acid such as is found in the stomach and guts or Insipid such as the Rheum distilling from the brain by the palate and nose the spittle and salivous moysture excerned from the Glanâ—ulae sublinguales 2 the Bile both that which is collected in the bladder of the Gall and that deposed in the cavities of the Ears called the Ear-wax for these two seem to be cousin germans and differing only in consistence The Urine is a serous excrement impregnated with Tartar and tincted with a small portion of the Bile brought by the Emulgent arteries into the Kidneys together with the blood there separated from the blood by a kind of percolation thence distilling by the Ureters into the bladder and at length avoided by the urinary passage The Sweat is likewise a serious excrement impregnated with a small quantity of Salt expulsed out of the capillary arteries into the habit of the body and thence excerned through the insensible pores of the skin Tears also are a serous and brackish excrement imported by the arteries into the Carunculae Lachrymales or smal Glandules placed in the interior corners of the Eyes there separated by a kind of percolation from the blood and thence expressed for the most part voluntarily in griefe and sometimes in suddain and profuse joy and sometimes involuntarily in pain fevers c. The limpid Liquor found in the Lympheducts at least a good part thereof is a mild and insipid exhalation of the blood in the arteries sweating through the coats of the smaller arteries collected by degrees in the Lympheducts and by them again infused into the blood as well to prevent the coagulation as to promote the mication thereof and after various Circulations avoided by evaporation through the skin Among the Less Thin Excrements The Phlegmatick mucus found in the stomach is a thick viscid excrementitious juice endowed with some Acidity brought into the coats of the stomach by those branches of the Celiacal artery which are therein terminated there secerned from the blood and by transudation immitted into the cavity of the stomach to the end that it may serve to excite the
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
either to progression or to apprehension because the power and influence of the brain is extinguished by the government and moderation whereof those motions were formerly regulated either to progression or flying so in Convulsions our Muscles are contracted and our members variously agitated with irregular and ineffectuall motions because those motions depend upon a natural sense only without the regulating influence of the Brain which taketh no cognizance of the injuries done to the Muscles nor of the sense which irritateth them These things duly considered Reason adviseth us henceforth to lay aside that opinion of Des Cartes and his disciple Regius both great Philosophers and in many other things worthy to be followed that the influx of Animal spirits by the nerves is necessary to the performance of all Naturall Motions and actions done in the body and to take up this more probable one of Dr. Harvey that each Natural action is effected by the part doing it meerly in respect of a certain sense whereby it feeleth what is troublesome and injurious to it selfe and so is irritated to excite such motions of it self as may conduce to its vindication and this without any influx or regiment of the Brain or Common sense at all We might have added further out of the same Dr. HARVET that all Motions in the body are derivative from the Vitall Influence of the Heart and wholly dependent thereupon because no part is longer capable of this Natural sense than while it is irradiated and enlivened by the Vitall Spirits or blood flowing from the heart for no part once mortified i.e. no longer participant of the Vitall influence can have any sense or be irritated to motion Besides it is not unreasonable to conceive that the strength or Tone of each part doth mostly consist in its enjoying a due proportion of Vitality and if that Tone or firmeness be vitiated or diminished as soon it must if deprived of that requisite influx that part becomes languid dull and hardly capable of irritation But this noble speculation requires to be handled with more exactness than the narrow limits of a short Digression will admit of and we have already said more than enough to assert that all parts of the body have a certain Naturall sense of Feeling distinct from the Animal and wholly independent upon the Brain which was the Probleme proposed ¶ OF RESPIRATION Exercitation the Eighth Of Respiration THE Chain of Nature Article by which she connecteth various Operations conspiring to one and the same End brings us in the next place to discourse of RESPIRATION The Connexion of this Exercitation to the precedent betwixt which and the Pulsation is a manifest affinity For these two Actions or Motions as they are inservient to the conservation of the Lamp of Life and the Generation of Vital Spirits so do they both consist of a Dilatation and Contraction the one of a Diastole and Systole of the Heart and Arteries the other of a Diastole and Systole of the Breast and Lungs Now this Affinity hath given occasion to many Physicians to conceive the Diastole and Systole of the Lungs to be Synchronical or coincident with the Diastole and Systole of the Heart and to refer both their motions to the same cause and Original But They have grossly erred in confounding things so manifestly different For 1 There are many sorts of Animals that have Hearts The Disparity betwixt Respiration and Pulsation both as to their Times or periods and as to their Vses but no Lungs 2 The Dilatations and Contractions of the Heart are clearly distinct from those of the Breast and Lungs as is evident from hence that they are not synchronical i. e. made and terminated in the same periods and times one complete Respiration taking up more time then 4 or 5 Pulses and this in all Animals that have both Heart and Lungs 3 The Motion of the Heart and Arteries is much different from that of the Lungs as to their Uses For First if the Pulse and Respiration have one and the same Final cause and that as these men have assumed the Arteries take in the ambient aer through the skin at every Diastole and exclude it again the same way together with the Fuliginous Exhalations of the blood in every systole and that in the space of time intermediate betwixt each Diastole and Systole they contain both the inspired aer and exhalations then must we renounce both the doctrine of our Master Galen that in the arteries nothing is contained but the blood and our owne experience that confirms it Secondly if the Arteries were as the Lungs are filled with aer drawn in by their extremities and that the quantity of aer attracted were proportionate to the magnitude of each pulse or to the greater or lesser dilatation of the arteries then if while the pulse is great the whole body were immerged into a bath of water or oyle it would necessarily follow that the Pulse would become much smaller or much slower because it is highly difficult if not wholly impossible that the ambient aer should pass through the bath into the pores of the skin and so into the arteries Thirdly since all the Arteries as well those that lye deep in the body as those terminated in the skin are moved with equal velocity and at the same time it is not possible the ambient aer should as freely and swiftly pass through the habit of the body into the profoundest arteries as into those contiguous to the skin Fourthly it is not credible that Whales Dolphins and other Cetaceous Animals that have Respiration can draw aer into their arteries at every diastole through so vasta mass of waters as is from the bottom to the top of the sea Fifthly if in their systole the Arteries expell the fuliginous exhalations of the blood through the pores of the skin why should they not expell also the vital spirits that are far more subtile and fugitive than those supposed Exhalations can be Nature certainly hath made no such Colatory as should retain the thinner spirits and let the grosser fumes pass through Nor is it yet sufficiently proved that there are any such Fuliginous Exhalations generated in the heart and arteries and afterward excluded partly by the Lungs partly by the Arteries in their Contractions as are vulgarly believed For the blood suffereth only a simple agitation or conquassation in the ventricles of the heart and a propulsion in the arteries and that it can produce such an aboundance of sooty fumes from the blood as Physicians have talked of is not easie to conceive Truth is the blood by reason of its heat and swift motion doth emit some Halitus or vapours which streaming through the coats of the smaller arteries are received and condensed into a thin limpid liquor by the Lympheducts but is it therefore necessary that it should emit Fuliginous exhalations We confess also that there is a certain thin Excrement of the blood and
arme was at first surprised with Convulsions of that Arme and those ceasing there ensued so great an Atrophy of that member as nothing now for the woman is yet living remains of it but skin and bones which extream extenuation doubtless is to be referred to the want of passage for the Succus Nutritius through the principal Nerv in the Arme from the beneficial use of Cephalique Emplastres in Consumptions from ulcerated Lungs no such accident but an Aneurisme usually following upon the incision of an Artery 2 In a Phthisis or Consumption from ulcerated Lungs Cephalique Emplastres though composed of hearing and drying ingredients and in that respect seeming very incompetent for such a Disease are found by experience to be very beneficial to the sick and that not only because they stop the defluxion of humors from the head upon the Lungs but also and chiefly because they warme and corroborate the Brain and Nervs and so promote the Nutrition of the Parts Which effect cannot be expected from their Heat and Driness but from some comfortable influence transmitted to the Nervs by which they are strengthned and made fit for the performance of their office viz. the conveying the nourishment from the brain to the parts 3 As those persons are inclined to Leanness who abound with blood From the Fatness of men endowed with large open spongy and moist nerves so are those inclined to grow Fat who have large moist open and spongy Nervs for such Nervs afford much Aliment and distribute it easily 4 It is commonly observed that from wounds of the joynts and Nervs From the roscid humor exstilling from wounds of the joynts and sinewes there distills a certain roscid Humor not much unlike the white of an Egg which being not likely to come from either the Arteries or veins in respect they carry nothing but blood why may we not believe it to drop out of the Nervs Also in such wounds in issues in hollow Teeth c. there grow up frequently certain fleshy Excrescences or Proud Flesh which being exceeding sensible and subject to acute pain upon the least touch cannot but have a very neer relation to the Nervs and blood certainly is very unapt to produce such Excrescences to the Generation of which some matter analogous to the sperme is necessarily required 5 The same may be said also of Wens and Scrophulous Tumors which seem to derive their Seminal Matter from the dew or Gâ—eet of the Nerves From the Material Principle of Wens and Scrophulous Tumors and not from any humor effused out of the Arteries or veins blood being a liquor partaking of too much Asperity and Acrimony to be the material Principle of such Tumors besides we have the testimony of our sense that the rudiments of such Tumors are like Eggs included in a membranous filme which contains a humor resembling the white of an Egg but nothing like blood Moreover these Tumors frequently tend to some kind of Formation though but an imperfect one producing sometimes a mass or lump of Flesh sometimes a Worme or other such Monster which is a strong Argument that their primitive Matter is not blood but a certain juyce much milder and sweeter and brought to the parts in which they are generated by the Nervs 6 This Opinion is further confirmed by the Matter of the Seed and the Manner of its preparation in the Testicles From the Matter of the seed and the Manner of its praeparation in the Testicles For the Seed seems to be generated not of the blood as hath been vulgarly believed but of a matter much sweeter and more generous brought into the Seminary vessells from the brain by the Nervs forasmuch as the Nervs are both more copiously and more deeply disseminated into the parenchyma of the Testicles than either the Arteries or the veins which is the reason why their inward substance is white not red Again their proper Coat appears to be nothing else but a certain expansion of the Nervs inserted into them from which Coat many small Nervs are on all parts derived to the middle of the Testicles where meeting together they make the long Nervous vessell that manifestly exonerateth it self into the Chanel of the Epididymis as may be plainly seen in the stones of a Horse Bull Boar or other large Animal As for the veins of the Testicles they serve only to export the blood imported by the Arteries and the Arteries themselves though they variously diffuse themselves round about the Testicles and accompanying the Nervs tend in divers places from the inward coat to the Ductus Seminalis situate in the very middle of the Testicle and are connected thereunto yet they rarely disperse any branches untill reflecting from that chanel they have begun their progresse back again toward the Circumference of the Testicle But there they send out some surcles to the outside of the Testicle to the end that those capillary veins opening themselves into the substance of the Testicle may the more easily receive the blood effused out of the Arteries and so carry it off again Because that blood if left there would soon obstruct the parenchyma of the Testicles and disturb the praeparation of the seed Yet these Arteries no where insinuate themselves into the Nervous or Seminal Chanel or infuse the least drop of blood into them So that it is more then probable they serve rather for the vivification of the Testicles by bringing the vital blood and spirits into them than for the importation of the Seminal Matter Now the Nervs implanted in the Testicles cannot be in order to their Motion because they have none that is voluntary nor is there any need of them as to sensation and therefore it is more credible that their Use is only to bring in some certain Liquor for the making of seed Furthermore the Testicles are furnished with many Lympheducts which could be of little Use unto them unless there were some other vessells present also by which that generous Liquor is brought in whose thinner and superfluous part those Lympheducts are framed to export Add to this that the seed is a liquor much more noble and Ambrosiack than the blood as is evident even from hence that a small expence of seed doth more exhaust the spirits than the losse of twenty times so much blood Which doubtless is the reason why Heaviness and dejection of spirit do alwayes ensue after the delights of Venus and it hath been observed that in men excessively addicted to women the Brain it self is not only much debilitated but made also lax thin and watery The Gout-likewise is generally an Attendant of immoderate venery because the joynts and nervous parts being much debilitated and the roscid and Unctuous Liquor of the Nervs deprived of its milder and sweeter part the Succus Nutritius becomes too thin and sharp and so is more expeditely discharged upon the joynts 7 From the Extremities of broken Bones from the Glutinous maâ—ter
issuing from the ends of broken bones and cementing them together again there sweats forth a certain Glutinous substance very beneficial toward the uniting and cementing them together again which liquor cannot proceed from the Arteries whose office is only to convey the blood a liquor vastly different from this Glew and since besides them and the Nervs there is no vessell yet found out that carries any humor from the Center to the circumference of the body it is very reasonable to conceive that this Glew is derived from the Nervs 8 The White of Eggs is brought into the womb of the Hen by the Nervs For it hath no resemblance at all to blood nor can it be generated of blood unless by way of separation but there can be no separation made in that part in respect it is wholly destitute of any Parenchyma which is absolutely necessary to the separation of any two Humors one from the other Whereas the secretion of the Succus Nutritius brought by the Nervs seems to want no parenchyma and may be effected in parts the most bloodless And that such a Secretion of the Succus Nutritius is made in the womb is manifest from the great number of Lympheducts returning from thence which Nature had nener ordained in that place unless it were to export the thinner and superfluous part of the Succus Nutritius brought to the womb by the Nerves So that the very Lympheducts seem to teach us that the Succus Nutritius is derived into the womb by the Nerves and that the watery part thereof being protruded into the Lympheducts the more unctuous and profitable is transmitted into the cavity of the womb there to make the White of the Egg. 1 In the Rickets there is generally observed an Inequality of Nutrition From the Vnequal nourishment of some part in that Rickets which according to the most of probability proceeds from the less aptitude of some Nerves to carry the nourishment than of others For that Disease seems to be seated originally and principally in the Spinal Marrow without the skull and in the Nerves thence propagated and therefore those Nerves must be more weak languid and unfit to transmit the Succus Nutritius than such as arise from the Brain or Marrow within the skull And hence is it doubtless that the Head Face and Viscera of the Abdomen all which derive their Nerves from the Marrow within the skull grow excessively great while the Armes and Leggs become lean flaccid and enervate as being supplyed with nourishment by Nerves issuing from the Spinal Marrow without the skull Moreover because it sometimes happens that some one particular branch of this or that Nerve is more debilitated than the rest thence it comes that one part of a Limb is better supplyed with nourishment than the other and so by that unequal Nutrition of its parts the whole member growes crooked And these are among many others the chief Arguments that have perswaded us that the Nourishment of the parts is brought to them by the Nerves Among the Difficulties encumbering this opinion Three grand Difficulties troubling this opinion there are 3 that especially deserve consideration viz. 1 That in the Nerves no passages or cavities can be discerned through which the Succus Nutritius may be convey'd 2 That in the dissection of Animals alive and the application of a ligature to any Nerve no swelling can be observed to arise on either side the Ligature and upon cutting off a Nerve very little or none at all of this supposed Liquor can be discerned to distill from either end contrary to what happeneth in the binding and cutting off any other vessell 3 No such Liquor hath yet been found in the Nerves of bodies dissected And yet these Difficulties are not weighty enough to counterbalance the Reason formerly alleadged forasmuch as they may be easily solved by Answering to the First Solution of the First asserting the possibility of the flux of the Nutritive juice through the Nervs notwithstanding no manifest Hollowness can be discerned in them that though no manifest hollowness be discernable in the Nerves such as is in Arteries and Veins yet is it not impossible but the supposed Succus Nutritius may distill gently through them For it is well known by the experiment of lowing the Spinal Marrow or any Nerve in water that the Nerves are made up of many small Fibrous Filaments or threads cohâ—ering together with a soft medullary substance betwixt them much like the Indian Canes which though in the cortex so hard and compact as to yield fire upon percussion with a Tobacco-pipe and as solid within as many sorts of wood being yet composed of many small and long Filaments with small perforations betwixt them are pervious from one end to the other so as a man may without much difficulty blow his spittle quite through them Likewise in the leaves of plants there shoots up a certain small Nervous rib arising from the Foot-stalke by which they are fastned to the branch and without which nothing of nourishment can be brought to them This little rib running up in the middle sends forth various lesser surcles or threads equally to all parts of the leaf so as the whole is thereby equally nourished And yet if you cut off this rib or any one branch of it you shall discover none the smallest cavity or hollowness therein nor any drop of juice issuing out of it unless in the Sowthistle Esula Celendine and some few other plants which emit either a milky or a yellowish juice which certainly is their nourishment And though other plants yield not upon cutting of their leaves the like juice yet most certain it is they are nourished with some kind of juice or other derived to them by their Foot-stalks So that we can perceive no such absolute necessity of any manifest cavity in their small ribbs for the dispensation of their nourishing juice as this Objection seems to import especially when we consider that the Motion of the Succus Nutritius in those slender Filaments or threads is very gentle slow and insensible not rapid or Violent as the motion of the blood in the Arteries and Veins of Animals Now since our sense is witnesse that liquor may be transmitted through a Fire-cane though sufficiently solid and compact and our Reason assureth that the Nutritive juice of Plants is distributed to all parts of the leaves through the Foot-stalk and little Rib running up in the middle of each leafe though we can discern no manifest passages or channels through which it flowes Why may not the nourishment of Animals be in like manner dispensed to the parts through the Nerves notwithstanding they appear destitute of any conspicuous hollowness But yet some Nerves there are not so impervious but they admit a small style or probe into them in which number are the Optique and Odoratory Nerves and though the rest have not the like visible hollowness yet reflecting upon this that all the