Page:The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, Wednesday, June 27th, 1877 (IA b22314623).pdf/9

 when we search further, and find that he still regards the flow of the blood comparable to the flood and ebb tides of the Euripus; that the arteries, according to him, convey the spirit to which their pulse is due; and that he utterly failed to recognise in the heart the central moving power of the circulation, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that his doctrinc, by itself, would never have formed the basis of modern physiology.

Cesalpino, whose work was published at Venice in 1593,* in the fifth book of his Peripatetic Questions, describes the circulation in the fol- lowing words:"As rivulets draw water from a spring, the veins and arteries take their origin from the heart. It is further necessary that they should all be continuous with the heart, that the blood contained in them may be preserved by its heat, for it congeals under the influence of cold, as appears whenever it is removed from the veins. Dissection shows that all veins are continuous with the heart alone, for those which pass from the heart to the lungs are continuous with no other viscus; they terminate in the ventricles of the heart and pass no further. The vena cava and the aorta, having reached the other viscera with the exception of the heart, pass beyond them;

v.; Dæmonum Investigatio peripatetica; Quastionum Medicarum, lib. ii.; De Medicaminum Facultatibus, libri ii. Venetiis, 1593. + Ibid., p. 116.
 * Andrea Cresalpini, Aretini, Questionum peripateticarum, libri