Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/358

 superior, another inferior ; but the albumen in the middle is liquid, and still extends under the inferior portion of the vitellus, as it did previously." Thus far Aristotle.

And now the arteries are seen distinctly accompanying the veins, both those that proceed to the albumen and those that are distributed to the vitellus. The vitellus also at this time liquefies still more and becomes more diffluent, not entirely, in- deed, but, as already said, that portion of it which is uppermost ; neither do the branches of the veins proceed to every part of the vitellus alike, but only to that part which we have spoken of as resembling melted wax. The veins that are distributed to the albumen have, in like manner, arteries accompanying them. The larger portion of the albumen now dissolves into a clear fluid, the colliquament, which surrounds the embryo that swims in its middle, and comes between the two portions of the vitellus, viz., the superior and the inferior; underneath all (in the sharp end of the egg), the thicker and more viscid portion of the albumen is contained. The superior portion of the yelk already appears more liquid and diffluent than the in- ferior; and wherever the branches of the veins extend, there the matter seems suddenly to swell and become more diffluent.

" On the tenth day," continues our author, " the albumen subsides, having now become a small tenacious, viscid, and yellowish mass" so much of it, that is to say, as has not passed into the state of colliquament.

For already the larger portion of the white has become dissolved, and has even passed into the body of the embryo, viz., the whole of the thinner albumen, and the greater portion of the thicker. The yelk, on the contrary, rather looks larger than it did in the beginning. Whence it clearly appears that the yelk has not as yet served for the nutrition of the embryo, but is reserved to perform this office by and by. In so far as we can conjecture from the course and distribution of the veins, the embryo from the commencement is nourished by the colli- quament ; upon this blood-vessels are first distributed, and then they spread over the membrane of the thinner albumen, next over the thicker albumen, and finally over the vitellus. The thicker albumen serves for nutriment after the thinner; the vitellus is drawn upon last of all.