History of the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of the ganglia and nerves, and of the action of the heart / by Robert Lee.
- Date:
- 1865
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: History of the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of the ganglia and nerves, and of the action of the heart / by Robert Lee. 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.
16/72 (page 12)
![bodies of all living creatures, the undivided glory of the discovery of which remains with Harvey. But Harvey did not discover the cause of the heart's action, or the source of its muscular contractions, and more than two centuries elapsed before this discovery was made. The cause of the motion of the heart, or the source of its contractile power, has engaged the attention of the most profound anatomists and physiologists ever since the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Harvey considered the motion of the heart, as already stated, to be muscular. It becomes erect, he says, hard, and of diminished size during its action; the motion is plainly of the same nature as that of the muscles. But I think it right to describe, he adds, what I have observed of an opposite character; the heart of an eel, of several fishes, and even of some of the [higher animals] taken out of the body beats without auricles ; nay, if it be cut in pieces, the several parts may still be seen contracting and relaxhig, so that in these creatures the body of the heart may be seen pulsating and palpi- tating after the cessation of all motion in the auricle. Experimenting with a pigeon on one occasion, after the heart had wholly ceased to pulsate and the auricles too had become motionless, I kept my finger, wetted with saHva and warm, for a short time upon the heart, and observed that under the influence of this fomentation it received more strength and life, so that both ventricles and auricles pulsated, contracting and relaxing alter-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21910558_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
