Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/10

 or, if they come to an end, they do not pour their blood into a general receptacle (non in ventrum aliquem transfundunt sanguinem), but are broken up into hair-tubes (capillamenta), for nowhere ex- cepting in the heart is the blood contained in a receptacle out of the veins."

Although in this passage Cesalpino speaks of a continuity of the bloodvessels, he still adheres, as shown in another passage,* to the view that the venous system depends less upon the heart than upon the liver, which organ possesses a special nutritive power (vim altricem), and is the real source of the veins: "non igitur cor sed hepar est principium venarum." Again, elsewheret Cæ- salpinus gives his adhesion to the ancient fallacy that the blood passes not only to the lungs from the right ventricle, but also through the septum into the left side of the heart; "partim per medium septum, partim per medios pulmones (sanguis) re- frigerationis gratiâ ex dextro in sinistrum trans- mittitur."

Even Harvey himself, conclusive as are his proofs of a continuity of the current both in the lesser and greater circulation from the heart as a starting-point back again to the central organ, nowhere gets beyond the prevailing view of an anastomosis between the arteries and the veins.


 * Question. peripatet., lib. v. p. 117.

+ Ibid., p. 126.