Page:The Harveian oration 1904.djvu/35

14 THE HARVEIAN ORATION, 1904 a description of the action of the heart and of the heart itself. From the heart arise the vessels which go to the whole body. . . if the physician lays his finger on the head, on the neck, on the hand, on the epigastrium, on the arm or the leg, everywhere the motion of the heart touches him, coursing through the vessels to all the members [the reference is clearly to the pulse]; 'thus the heart is known as the centre of all the vessels. Four vessels go to the nasal chambers, of which two convey mucus and two convey blood. There are four vessels within the temples or skull, from these the eyes obtain their blood. . . . The four vessels divide inside the head and spread towards the hinder part.' The Berlin papyrus speaks of the division into thirty-two vessels within the skull, and implies that air traverses, at any rate, some of them.

Returning to Ebers's papyrus' When the breath enters the nostrils it penetrates to the heart and to the internal organs, and supplies the whole body abundantly.' This idea that certain of the vessels convey air, you will observe, is identical with the Greek conception and probably was its source. 'Three vessels traverse the arms and extend to the fingers, three vessels also pass down the leg and are distributed to the sole of the foot, a vessel goes to each testis and one to each kidney. Four vessels enter the liver, con- veying fluid and air; these may be the seat of I. Fo. 99