Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/238

 the Brain consists of an innumerable Company of very small Glandules, which are all supplied with Blood by Capillary Arteries; and that the Animal Spirit, which is separated from the Mass of the Blood in these Glandules, is carried from them into the Medulla Oblongata through little Pipes, whereof one belongs to every Gland, whose other End is inserted into the Medulla Oblongata, and that these Numberless Pipes, which in the Brain of some Fishes look like the Teeth of a small Ivory Comb (c), are properly that which all Anatomists after Piccolhomineus have called the Corpus callosum, or the Medullar Part of the Brain. This Discovery destroys the Ancient Notions of the Uses of the Ventricles of the Brain, and makes it very probable that those Cavities are only Sinks to carry off excrementitious Humours, and not Store-Houses of the Animal Spirit: It shews likewise how little they knew of the Brain who believed that it was an uniform Substance. Some of the Ancients disputed (d) whether the Brain were not made to cool the Heart. Now though these are ridiculed by Galen, so that their Opinions are not imputable to those who never held them; yet they shew that these famous Men had examined these things very superfi-