Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 002.djvu/178

 Cartes would have it) but the moist steams and expirations of the Heart.

As for Respiration, he thinks it a vain opinion, that thereby the heat of the Blood is temper'd and allay'd; but affirms, that it is therefore necessary, because that the Blood, which out of the right Ventricle of the Heart is propelled into the Lungs, in such Animals, as are furnish'd with them, cannot pals into the left, unless the Air, breathed in, do swell and distend the small branches of the Windpipe; it being from thence, that the ramifications of the Arterial Vein, through which the blood must pass, are compress'd, and the blood therein inclosed is protruded into the branches of the venal Artery: For the proof of which, he alledges divers Observations. Adding withall, that since Animals, whilst they are. in the Womb, respire not, there being peculiar ductus ' s by which the blood passeth into the Aorta, without passing through the Lungs, as it always doth in Animals destitute of Lungs; he doubts not, but that with art and care those Channels may be preserved unabolisht, and made to grow and to be perfected with the other parts of the Animal, so that grown men may be brought to live the life of Amphibious Creatures. Nor dot he think this very difficult, in regard, that if their mouths and noses were from their very infancy often stopt every day, and their breath so long intercepted, while the blood passeth through those Ductus's into the left Ventricle of the Heart and the great Artery, the said passages would' never be dried up: To confirm the possibility whereof, he alledges Examples of divers, who from their Childhood being given to swimming and diving and so to the holding of their breath, did thereby so preserve those Channels from being dried up, that upon occasion they could stay a great while under water, as Amphibiums use to do.

is Learned Man having proposed to himself to go through the. whole Body of Natural Philosophy, by the way of Essays, divides that System into three Parts; whereof

The First being General, is to treat of what is common to all Bodies,