Some recently discovered letters of William Harvey, with other miscellanea / by S. Weir Mitchell ; with a bibliography of Harvey's works by Charles Perry Fisher.
- William Harvey
- Date:
- 1912
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Some recently discovered letters of William Harvey, with other miscellanea / by S. Weir Mitchell ; with a bibliography of Harvey's works by Charles Perry Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
60/88 page 46
![Then follows a description of the motions of the heart and lungs: how both human hearts and those of lower animals are provided by nature with twin cavities, which alternately distend and become flaccid with the entering and the leaving blood. From the upper heart arise in order four veins, here two, there two; neither their appearance nor their use is identical: one part shines white, safe with a thick covering, and with care conceals the fluids within; the other part, clothed with thin covering and shining skin, offers to view a purple liquid, and by its livid colour confesses that its inner channels burn with native minium (reddish-blue colour). Swelling and turgid, the one is distended with spirits; placid blood, in gentle current, flows through the others. But all arise from the Heart, from the same source; at first they swell out big, and flow in larger current; but after- wards they suddenly diminish into narrow streams, and dividing little by little into smaller channels, ap- preciably decrease, and spreading out into minute filaments wander through the viscera, through the flesh, through all the limbs, breathing the life-giving fire into every structure. These matters, sufficiently explored once by others, he leaves; but meanwhile a new care harasses his eager mind: to know what force drives the mass of the Heart, whence it receives the warm sap, and into what regions it drives it forth; whither flows the Blood escaping through the open channels {i. e., from the heart), [46] .](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21173370_0060.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
