Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians June 24, 1882 - by George Johnson (IA b21517046).pdf/34

 should be continued and pass out from the brain to the organs of sense; but nothing is seen to pass out of the brain but the nerves; the nerves, therefore, must be these numerous venules, col- lected, not into one common canal, but into a body composed of many and most minute canals. Therefore a nerve is divisible lengthways, for the venules terminate in straight fibres constituting the nerves." This Cesalpino says is Aristotle's doctrine, and he asks: What can be more clear than this dictum, for a nerve is nothing more than the extremities of the aorta-some taking the nature of nerves in the head, that is, in the brain; others about the lower parts, that is, in the limbs and joints of the whole body.'1

fissilis est nervus secundum longitudinem: nam venulæ in fibras rectas desinunt nervos constituentes'-p. 120 D.

1 'Quid potest hoe dicto clarius esse? nihil enim aliud est nervus quam extrema aortæ, alia quidem in capite, id est in cerebro naturam norvi accipientia, alia autem circa imas partes, id est circa crura et articulos totius corporis. . . . Sententia igitur est Aris- toteles ex aorta ad caput tendente oriri nervos cerebri Meatus igitur quos scribit Aristoteles ad oculos pervenire ex venulis que sunt circa cerebrum, quid aliud sunt quam nervi appellati vi- sorii? Stultum autem est credere non esse meatus, si quis amplum quemdam canalem in ipsis non percipiat. Ut enim capillum per- foratum esse seimus, non tamen visui ob parvitatem meatus apparet, sic nervos ex aliis signis fistulosos esse cognoscimus, visui tamen non sunt manifesti meatus '-120 E. F.