William Harvey : a history of the discovery of the circulation of the blood / by R. Willis ; with a portrait of Harvey, after Faithorne.
- Date:
- 1878
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: William Harvey : a history of the discovery of the circulation of the blood / by R. Willis ; with a portrait of Harvey, after Faithorne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![spirit escape from a wounded artery as a prelude to any flow of blood ; but as nothing of the kind occurs we conclude that the vessel never contained aught but blood.” 1 Again he says : “If we lay bare an artery, include a portion of it between ligatures, and then open it, we shall find it full of blood.” And yet again : “ But how, say the followers of Erasistratus, if the arteries contain blood only, does the air we take in when we breathe reach every part of the body? To whom we reply : wherefore the necessity of its doing so, when all that is taken in is returned again ? Many therefore, and among these some of the most able both of our philosophers and physicians, have seen that the heart requires not air in substance, but cool- ness only, whereby it is refreshed—and this is the purpose of Respiration”'—another of the Galenical, and still more ancient errors, that was only dissipated by the progress of modern chemistry, the discovery of oxygen by Priestly, and the theory of combustion announced by Lavoisier. Albert Haller, the most learned anatomist and physiologist of his age (Ele- menta Physiologise, 1757), retained a lingering belief 1 “ Quoniam arteria quocunque vulnerata sanguinem egredi videmus, duorum alteram sit oportet : vel in arteriis sanguinem contineri, vel aliunde ipsum in eas confluere. Quod si aliundfe, manifestum cuique est, cum se naturaliter arteriae habebant [ut dictum est], spiritum ipsas solummodo contenuisse, oportebat in vulneratis priusquam sanguis egrederetur spiritum exire conspiceremus. Cum hoc autem fieri non videamus, nec antek solum spiritum in arteriis contentum fuisse collige- mus. (Lib. An sanguis in arteriis natura contineatur ?)](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21996404_0056.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
