Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/267

 to what purpose, not yet certainly discovered.

The Use of the Reins is so very conspicuous, that, from Hippocrates's Time, downwards, no Man ever mistook it: But the Mechanism of those wonderful Strainers was wholly unknown, till the so often mentioned Malpighius (s) found it out. He therefore, by his Glasses, discovered, that the Kidneys are not one uniform Substance, but consist of several small Globules, which are all like so many several Kidneys, bound about with one common Membrane; and that every Globule has small Twigs from the emulgent Arteries, that carry Blood to it; Glands, in which the Urine is strained from it; Veins, by which the purified Blood is carried off to the Emulgent Veins, thence to go into the Cava; a Pipe, to convey the Urine into the great Basin in the middle of the Kidney; and a Nipple, towards which several of those small Pipes tend, and through which the Urine ouzes out of them, into the Basin. This clear Use of the Structure of the Reins, has effectually confuted several Notions that Men had entertained, of some Secundary Uses of those Parts; since hereby it appears, that every Part of the Kidneys is immediately, and