Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/476

 portion of the body, because the pulse has its commencement in and through it; but also because animal heat originates in it, and the vital spirit is associated with it, and it constitutes the vital principle itself, (ipsa anima) ; for wheresoever the im- mediate and principal instrument of the vegetative faculty is first discovered, there also does it seem likely will the living principle be found to reside, and thence take its rise ; seeing that the life is inseparable from spirit and innate heat.

For " however distinct are the artist and the instrument in things made by art," as Fabricius l well reminds us, " in the works of nature they are still conjoined and one. Thus the stomach is the author and the organ of chylopoesis." In like manner are the vital principle and its instrument immediately conjoined ; and so, in whatever part of the body heat and motion have their origin, in this also must life take its rise, in this be last extinguished ; and no one, I presume, will doubt that there are the lares and penates of life enshrined, that there the vital principle (anima) itself has its seat.

The life, therefore, resides in the blood, (as we are also in- formed in our sacred writings,) 2 because in it life and the soul first show themselves, and last become extinct. For I have frequently found, from the dissection of living animals, as I have said, that the heart of an animal that was dying, that was dead, and had ceased to breathe, still continued to pulsate for a time, and retained its vitality. The ventricles failing and coming to a stand, the motion still goes on in the auricles, and finally in the right auricle alone ; and even when all motion has ceased, there the blood may still be seen affected with a kind of undulation and obscure palpitation or tremor, the last evidence of life. Every one, indeed, may perceive that the blood this author of pulsation and life, longest retains its heat ; for when this is gone, and it is no longer blood, but gore, so is there, then, no hope of a return to life. But, truly, as has been stated, both in the chick in ovo and in the mori- bund animal, if you but apply some gentle stimulus either to the punctum saliens or to the right auricle of the heart after the failure of all pulsation, forthwith you will see motion, pul- sation, and life restored to the blood provided always, be it

1 Op. Eup. cit. p. 28. 2 Leviticus xvii, 11, 14.