Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/250

 to his Knowledge, convey Liquors to that Cistern. (4.) Hippocrates says, the Blood is carried into the Lungs, from the Heart, for the Nourishment of the Lungs; without assigning any other Reason (b). These seem to be positive Arguments, that Hippocrates knew nothing of this Matter; and accordingly, all his Commentators, Ancient and Modern, before Dr. Harvey, never interpreted the former Passages of the Circulation of the Blood: Neither would Vander Linden, in all probability, if Dr. Harvey had not helped him to the Notion; which he was then resolved to find in Hippocrates, whom he supposed not the Father only, but the Finisher also of the whole Medical Art. It is pretended to by none of the Ancients, or rather their Admirers for them, after Hippocrates. As for Galen, any Man that reads what he says of the Heart and Lungs, in the 6th. Book of his De Usu Partium, must own, that he does not discourse as if he were acquainted with Modern Discoveries; and therefore it is not so much as pretended that he knew this Recurrent Motion of the Blood. Which also further shews, that if Hippocrates did know it, he explained himself so obscurely, that Galen could not understand him; who, in all probability, understood Hippocrates's