Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/495

 io* S.V.MAY 26, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

407

a chronological arrangement ; arid the word " Alphabet" is good for lists of references arranged under their initial letters, A.B.C., <fec. The last is, in this connexion, an old- fashioned word that should never have been permitted to fall into disuse. It exactly conveys to the mind, for example, the nature of the list of Chancery Proceedings, Series II., issued by the Record Office in 1896, erro- neously, as it seems to me, called an * Index.' G. F. T. SHERWOOD.

DONC ASTER WEATHER- RIME. I have heard the following weather - rime relating ^ to Doncaster and its neighbourhood, which ought to be preserved in ' N. & Q.' if it has not appeared there before : There '11 be rain or something waur When the wild duck swims in the pottery car.

EDWARD PEACOCK. Kirton-in-Lindsey.

FATHER PAUL SARPI A*TD THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. (See 5 th S. i. 184 ; 10 th S. iii. 44, 84, 144, 232.) I hope I may be pardoned for referring again to one who has already received so much attention in these columns. At the first of the above references Sarpi's anatomical investigations are mentioned, but the claims put forward on his behalf as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood are not fully stated. These claims are well summarized in an article by Dr. J. C. Hem- meter in the Johns Hopkins, Hospital Bulletin, vol. xvi. p. 170, from a book by G. Ceradini entitled 'LaScoperta della Circplazione del Sangue : Appunti Storico - Critici ' (8vo, Milano, 1876), pp. 92-3, 163-72, 321-3 :

41 To Ceradini is due the credit of having brought to light a series of important documents which lead to the conclusion that the first to recognize the function of the venous valves was the famous theologian and canonist of the republic of Venice, Paolo Sarpi, the friend and pupil of Fabricius. It is a^fact that some contemporary authors ascribed to Sarpi the discovery of the circulation of the blood. Brother Micanzio, Bartholin, Vesling, Gassendi, and Walffiaa name him as the discoverer. Voss (1685) wrote that the discovery made in Italy by Cesalpinus of the circulation of the blood ' Paulo Sarpi veneto in primis placuit.' Vesling wrote to Bartholin that he had seen in the possession of Brother Micanzio after the death of Sarpi an autograph of the latter, in which the circulation of the blood was described. The famous Dutch physician Walanis wrote in the year 1640: 'Paulus Servita Venetus valvularum in venis fabricam

observavit accuratius ex valvularum constitu-

tione aliisque experimentis, sanguinis motum deduxit egregioque scripto asseruit." Unfortu- nately, however, the manuscripts of Sarpi which were preserved in the library of the Servitians at Venice were destroyed, together with a large portion of the monastery, by a fire in September, 1769, and there was preserved only a passage cited

from a letter, in Griselini's book entitled ' Del Genio di Fra Paolo Sarpi ' (Venice, 1783) in which letter Sarpi makes allusion to that which he ' had observed and written down concerning the circu- lation of the blood in the vessels of the animal body and the structure and function of the venous valves.' "

Though not strictly to the present point, I note that Saint Real in his ' Conspiration contre Venise' tells of Sarpi's work for the Venetian State and of the circumstances under which the ' History of the Council of Trent' was published.

W. R. B. PRIDE A ux.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

" PIT " = COCKPIT. Johnson's ' Dictionary has the following quotation :

Make him glad, at least, to quit His victory, and fly the pit. 1 Hudibras.'

'Hudibras' is rather a wide field, and our , scouts have failed* to find this passage Perhaps some one who knows his 'Hudibras' can give the reference, which is wanted for the 4 Dictionary.' J. A. H. MURRAY.
 * Will readers of 'N. & Q.' try to run it down ?

Oxford.

" PIT- COUNTER." This occurs in Howell's in chap, xxviii. : *'To play at pit-counter: Alia fossetta, &c. A la fossetta, &c. ; Al hoy velo, &c." The other games in the imme- diate context are out-of-door ones, so that this was probably the same. Fossetta in Italian and hoyvelo in Spanish mean a pit or ditch. Can any one give further information as to the nature of "pit-counter," or supply other references to it 1 J. A. H. MURRAY.
 * Vocabulary ' of 1659, among a list of games

" PLANE " = SYCAMORE. A quotation before me, said to be from " J. Wilson," but without date or reference, runs thus : The Plane's thick head mid burning day suspends Impenetrable shade ; bees humming pour O'er the broad balmy leaves, and suck the flower. I shall be grateful to any one who can identify this, and state where it occurs.

J. A. H. MURRAY.

TAROT CARDS. A friend of mine, who is the fortunate possessor of a remarkable collection of chessmen and playing cards a part of which was illustrated in The. Windsor Magazine for March, 1902 has asked me to get him a description of an old