Vernon Lee - "A Phantom Lover"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1588 89"

Charlotte M. Yonge - "Heartsease or Brother's Wife"

William Makepeace Thackeray - "The Newcomes"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Harvard Classics Volume 38

V >> Various >> The Harvard Classics Volume 38




My dear colleagues, I had no purpose to swell this treatise into
a large volume by quoting the names and writings of anatomists,
or to make a parade of the strength of my memory, the extent of
my reading, and the amount of my pains; because I profess both to
learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections;
not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of
nature; and then because I do not think it right or proper to
strive to take from the ancients any honor that is their due, nor
yet to dispute with the moderns, and enter into controversy with
those who have excelled in anatomy and been my teachers. I would
not charge with wilful falsehood any one who was sincerely
anxious for truth, nor lay it to any one's door as a crime that
he had fallen into error. I avow myself the partisan of truth
alone; and I can indeed say that I have used all my endeavours,
bestowed all my pains on an attempt to produce something that
should be agreeable to the good, profitable to the learned, and
useful to letters.

Farewell, most worthy Doctors, And think kindly of your
Anatomist,

WILLIAM HARVEY.




INTRODUCTION


As we are about to discuss the motion, action, and use of the
heart and arteries, it is imperative on us first to state what
has been thought of these things by others in their writings, and
what has been held by the vulgar and by tradition, in order that
what is true may be confirmed, and what is false set right by
dissection, multiplied experience, and accurate observation.

Almost all anatomists, physicians, and philosophers up to the
present time have supposed, with Galen, that the object of the
pulse was the same as that of respiration, and only differed in
one particular, this being conceived to depend on the animal, the
respiration on the vital faculty; the two, in all other respects,
whether with reference to purpose or to motion, comporting
themselves alike. Whence it is affirmed, as by Hieronymus
Fabricius of Aquapendente, in his book on "Respiration," which
has lately appeared, that as the pulsation of the heart and
arteries does not suffice for the ventilation and refrigeration
of the blood, therefore were the lungs fashioned to surround the
heart. From this it appears that whatever has hitherto been said
upon the systole and diastole, or on the motion of the heart and
arteries, has been said with especial reference to the lungs.

But as the structure and movements of the heart differ from those
of the lungs, and the motions of the arteries from those of the
chest, so it seems likely that other ends and offices will thence
arise, and that the pulsations and uses of the heart, likewise of
the arteries, will differ in many respects from the heavings and
uses of the chest and lungs. For did the arterial pulse and the
respiration serve the same ends; did the arteries in their
diastole take air into their cavities, as commonly stated, and in
their systole emit fuliginous vapours by the same pores of the
flesh and skin; and further, did they, in the time intermediate
between the diastole and the systole, contain air, and at all
times either air or spirits, or fuliginous vapours, what should
then be said to Galen, who wrote a book on purpose to show that
by nature the arteries contained blood, and nothing but blood,
and consequently neither spirits nor air, as may readily be
gathered from the experiments and reasonings contained in the
same book? Now, if the arteries are filled in the diastole with
air then taken into them (a larger quantity of air penetrating
when the pulse is large and full), it must come to pass that if
you plunge into a bath of water or of oil when the pulse is
strong and full, it ought forthwith to become either smaller or
much slower, since the circumambient bath will render it either
difficult or impossible for the air to penetrate. In like manner,
as all the arteries, those that are deep-seated as well as those
that are superficial, are dilated at the same instant and with
the same rapidity, how is it possible that air should penetrate
to the deeper parts as freely and quickly through the skin,
flesh, and other structures, as through the cuticle alone? And
how should the arteries of the foetus draw air into their
cavities through the abdomen of the mother and the body of the
womb? And how should seals, whales, dolphins, and other
cetaceans, and fishes of every description, living in the depths
of the sea, take in and emit air by the diastole and systole of
their arteries through the infinite mass of water? For to say
that they absorb the air that is present in the water, and emit
their fumes into this medium, were to utter something like a
figment. And if the arteries in their systole expel fuliginous
vapours from their cavities through the pores of the flesh and
skin, why not the spirits, which are said to be contained in
those vessels, at the same time, since spirits are much more
subtile than fuliginous vapours or smoke? And if the arteries
take in and cast out air in the systole and diastole, like the
lungs in the process of respiration, why do they not do the same
thing when a wound is made in one of them, as in the operation of
arteriotomy? When the windpipe is divided, it is sufficiently
obvious that the air enters and returns through the wound by two
opposite movements; but when an artery is divided, it is equally
manifest that blood escapes in one continuous stream, and that no
air either enters or issues. If the pulsations of the arteries
fan and refrigerate the several parts of the body as the lungs do
the heart, how comes it, as is commonly said, that the arteries
carry the vital blood into the different parts, abundantly
charged with vital spirits, which cherish the heat of these
parts, sustain them when asleep, and recruit them when exhausted?
How should it happen that, if you tie the arteries, immediately
the parts not only become torpid, and frigid, and look pale, but
at length cease even to be nourished? This, according to Galen,
is because they are deprived of the heat which flowed through all
parts from the heart, as its source; whence it would appear that
the arteries rather carry warmth to the parts than serve for any
fanning or refrigeration. Besides, how can their diastole draw
spirits from the heart to warm the body and its parts, and means
of cooling them from without? Still further, although some affirm
that the lungs, arteries, and heart have all the same offices,
they yet maintain that the heart is the workshop of the spirits,
and that the arteries contain and transmit them; denying,
however, in opposition to the opinion of Columbus, that the lungs
can either make or contain spirits. They then assert, with Galen,
against Erasistratus, that it is the blood, not spirits, which is
contained in the arteries.

These opinions are seen to be so incongruous and mutually
subversive, that every one of them is justly brought under
suspicion. That it is blood and blood alone which is contained in
the arteries is made manifest by the experiment of Galen, by
arteriotomy, and by wounds; for from a single divided artery, as
Galen himself affirms in more than one place, the whole of the
blood may be withdrawn in the course of half an hour or less. The
experiment of Galen alluded to is this: "If you include a portion
of an artery between two ligatures, and slit it open lengthwise
you will find nothing but blood"; and thus he proves that the
arteries contain only blood. And we too may be permitted to
proceed by a like train of reasoning: if we find the same blood
in the arteries as in the veins, after having tied them in the
same way, as I have myself repeatedly ascertained, both in the
dead body and in living animals, we may fairly conclude that the
arteries contain the same blood as the veins, and nothing but the
same blood. Some, whilst they attempt to lessen the difficulty,
affirm that the blood is spirituous and arterious, and virtually
concede that the office of the arteries is to carry blood from
the heart into the whole of the body, and that they are therefore
filled with blood; for spirituous blood is not the less blood on
that account. And no one denies the blood as such, even the
portion of it which flows in the veins, is imbued with spirits.
But if that portion of it which is contained in the arteries be
richer in spirits, it is still to be believed that these spirits
are inseparable from the blood, like those in the veins; that the
blood and spirits constitute one body (like whey and butter in
milk, or heat in hot water), with which the arteries are charged,
and for the distribution of which from the heart they are
provided. This body is nothing else than blood. But if this blood
be said to be drawn from the heart into the arteries by the
diastole of these vessels, it is then assumed that the arteries
by their distension are filled with blood, and not with the
surrounding air, as heretofore; for if they be said also to
become filled with air from the ambient atmosphere, how and when,
I ask, can they receive blood from the heart? If it be answered:
during the systole, I take it to be impossible: the arteries
would then have to fill while they contracted, to fill, and yet
not become distended. But if it be said: during diastole, they
would then, and for two opposite purposes, be receiving both
blood and air, and heat and cold, which is improbable. Further
when it is affirmed that the diastole of the heart and arteries
is simultaneous, and the systole of the two is also concurrent,
there is another incongruity. For how can two bodies mutually
connected, which are simultaneously distended, attract or draw
anything from one another? or being simultaneously contracted,
receive anything from each other? And then it seems impossible
that one body can thus attract another body into itself, so as to
become distended, seeing that to be distended is to be passive,
unless, in the manner of a sponge, which has been previously
compressed by an external force, it is returning to its natural
state. But it is difficult to conceive that there can be anything
of this kind in the arteries. The arteries dilate, because they
are filled like bladders or leathern bottles; they are not filled
because they expand like bellows. This I think easy of
demonstration, and indeed conceive that I have already proved it.
Nevertheless, in that book of Galen headed "Quod Sanguis
continetur in Arterus," he quotes an experiment to prove the
contrary. An artery having been exposed, is opened
longitudinally, and a reed or other pervious tube is inserted
into the vessel through the opening, by which the blood is
prevented from being lost, and the wound is closed. "So long," he
says, "as things are thus arranged, the whole artery will
pulsate; but if you now throw a ligature about the vessel and
tightly compress its wall over the tube, you will no longer see
the artery beating beyond the ligature." I have never performed
this experiment of Galen's nor do I think that it could very well
be performed in the living body, on account of the profuse flow
of blood that would take place from the vessel that was operated
on; neither would the tube effectually close the wound in the
vessel without a ligature; and I cannot doubt but that the blood
would be found to flow out between the tube and the vessel. Still
Galen appears by this experiment to prove both that the pulsative
property extends from the heart by the walls of the arteries, and
that the arteries, whilst they dilate, are filled by that
pulsific force, because they expand like bellows, and do not
dilate as if they are filled like skins, But the contrary is
obvious in arteriotomy and in wounds; for the blood spurting from
the arteries escapes with force, now farther, now not so far,
alternately, or in jets; and the jet always takes place with the
diastole of the artery, never with the systole. By which it
clearly appears that the artery is dilated with the impulse of
the blood; for of itself it would not throw the blood to such a
distance and whilst it was dilating; it ought rather to draw air
into its cavity through the wound, were those things true that
are commonly stated concerning the uses of the arteries. Do not
let the thickness of the arterial tunics impose upon us, and lead
us to conclude that the pulsative property proceeds along them
from the heart For in several animals the arteries do not
apparently differ from the veins; and in extreme parts of the
body where the arteries are minutely subdivided, as in the brain,
the hand, etc., no one could distinguish the arteries from the
veins by the dissimilar characters of their coats: the tunics of
both are identical. And then, in the aneurism proceeding from a
wounded or eroded artery, the pulsation is precisely the same as
in the other arteries, and yet it has no proper arterial
covering. To this the learned Riolanus testifies along with me,
in his Seventh Book.

Nor let any one imagine that the uses of the pulse and the
respiration are the same, because, under the influences of the
same causes, such as running, anger, the warm bath, or any other
heating thing, as Galen says, they become more frequent and
forcible together. For not only is experience in opposition to
this idea, though Galen endeavours to explain it away, when we
see that with excessive repletion the pulse beats more forcibly,
whilst the respiration is diminished in amount;, but in young
persons the pulse is quick, whilst respiration is slow. So it is
also in alarm, and amidst care, and under anxiety of mind;
sometimes, too, in fevers, the pulse is rapid, but the
respiration is slower than usual.

These and other objections of the same kind may be urged against
the opinions mentioned. Nor are the views that are entertained of
the offices and pulse of the heart, perhaps, less bound up with
great and most inextricable difficulties. The heart, it is
vulgarly said, is the fountain and workshop of the vital spirits,
the centre from which life is dispensed to the several parts of
the body. Yet it is denied that the right ventricle makes
spirits, which is rather held to supply nourishment to the lungs.
For these reasons it is maintained that fishes are without any
right ventricle (and indeed every animal wants a right ventricle
which is unfurnished with lungs), and that the right ventricle is
present solely for the sake of the lungs.

1. Why, I ask, when we see that the structure of both ventricles
is almost identical, there being the same apparatus of fibres,
and braces, and valves, and vessels, and auricles, and both in
the same way in our dissections are found to be filled up with
blood similarly black in colour, and coagulated--why, I say,
should their uses be imagined to be different, when the action,
motion, and pulse of both are the same? If the three tricuspid
valves placed at the entrance into the right ventricle prove
obstacles to the reflux of the blood into the vena cava, and if
the three semilunar valves which are situated at the commencement
of the pulmonary artery be there, that they may prevent the
return of the blood into the ventricle; why, when we find similar
structures in connexion with the left ventricle, should we deny
that they are there for the same end, of preventing here the
egress, there the regurgitation, of the blood?

2. And, when we have these structures, in points of size, form,
and situation, almost in every respect the same in the left as in
the right ventricle, why should it be said that things are
arranged in the former for the egress and regress of spirits, and
in the latter or right ventricle, for the blood? The same
arrangement cannot be held fitted to favour or impede the motion
of the blood and of spirits indifferently.

3. And when we observe that the passages and vessels are
severally in relation to one another in point of size, viz., the
pulmonary artery to the pulmonary veins; why should the one be
destined to a private purpose, that of furnishing the lungs, the
other to a public function?

4. And as Realdus Columbus says, is it probable that such a
quantity of blood should be required for the nutrition of the
lungs; the vessel that leads to them, the vena arteriosa or
pulmonary artery being of greater capacity than both the iliac
veins?

5. And I ask, as the lungs are so close at hand, and in continual
motion, and the vessel that supplies them is of such dimensions,
what is the use or meaning of this pulse of the right ventricle?
and why was nature reduced to the necessity of adding another
ventricle for the sole purpose of nourishing the lungs?

When it is said that the left ventricle draws materials for the
formation of spirits, air and blood, from the lungs and right
sinuses of the heart, and in like manner sends spirituous blood
into the aorta, drawing fuliginous vapours from there, and
sending them by the pulmonary vein into the lungs, whence spirits
are at the same time obtained for transmission into the aorta, I
ask how, and by what means is the separation effected? And how
comes it that spirits and fuliginous vapours can pass hither and
thither without admixture or confusion? If the mitral cuspidate
valves do not prevent the egress of fuliginous vapours to the
lungs, how should they oppose the escape of air? And how should
the semiluftars hinder the regress of spirits from the aorta upon
each supervening diastole of the heart? Above all, how can they
say that the spirituous blood is sent from the pulmonary veins by
the left ventricle into the lungs without any obstacle to its
passage from the mitral valves, when they have previously
asserted that the air entered by the same vessel from the lungs
into the left ventricle, and have brought forward these same
mitral valves as obstacles to its retrogression? Good God! how
should the mitral valves prevent the regurgitation of air and not
of blood?

Moreover, when they appoint the pulmonary artery, a vessel of
great size, with the coverings of an artery, to none but a kind
of private and single purpose, that, namely, of nourishing the
lungs, why should the pulmonary vein, which is scarcely so large,
which has the coats of a vein, and is soft and lax, be presumed
to be made for many--three or four different--uses? For they will
have it that air passes through this vessel from the lungs into
the left ventricle; that fuliginous vapours escape by it from the
heart into the lungs; and that a portion of the spirituous blood
is distributed to the lungs for their refreshment.

If they will have it that fumes and air--fumes flowing from, air
proceeding towards the heart--are transmitted by the same
conduit, I reply, that nature is not wont to construct but one
vessel, to contrive but one way for such contrary motions and
purposes, nor is anything of the kind seen elsewhere.

If fumes or fuliginous vapours and air permeate this vessel, as
they do the pulmonary bronchia, wherefore do we find neither air
nor fuliginous vapours when we divide the pulmonary vein? Why do
we always find this vessel full of sluggish blood, never of air,
whilst in the lungs we find abundance of air remaining?

If any one will perform Galen's experiment of dividing the
trachea of a living dog, forcibly distending the lungs with a
pair of bellows, and then tying the trachea securely, he will
find, when he has laid open the thorax, abundance of air in the
lungs, even to their extreme investing tunic, but none in either
the pulmonary veins or the left ventricle of the heart. But did
the heart either attract air from the lungs, or did the lungs
transmit any air to the heart, in the living dog, much more ought
this to be the case in the experiment just referred to. Who,
indeed, doubts that, did he inflate the lungs of a subject in the
dissecting--room, he would instantly see the air making its way
by this route, were there actually any such passage for it? But
this office of the pulmonary veins, namely, the ransference of
air from the lungs of the heart, is held of such importance, that
Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, contends that the lungs
were made for the sake of this vessel, and that it constitutes
the principal element in their structure. But I should like to be
informed why, if the pulmonary vein were destined for the
conveyance of air, it has the structure of a blood--vessel here.
Nature had rather need of annular tubes, such as those of the
bronchi in order that they might always remain open, and not be
liable to collapse; and that they might continue entirely free
from blood, lest the liquid should interfere with the passage of
the air, as it so obviously does when the lungs labour from being
either greatly oppressed or loaded in a less degree with phlegm,
as they are when the breathing is performed with a sibilous or
rattling noise.

Still less is that opinion to be tolerated which, as a two-fold
material, one aerial, one sanguineous, is required for the
composition of vital spirits, supposes the blood to ooze through
the septum of the heart from the right to the left ventricle by
certain hidden porosities, and the air to be attracted from the
lungs through the great vessel, the pulmonary vein; and which,
consequently, will have it, that there are numerous porosities in
the septum of the heart adapted for the transmission of the
blood. But by Hercules! no such pores can be demonstrated, nor in
fact do any such exist. For the septum of the heart is of a
denser and more compact structure than any portion of the body,
except the bones and sinews. But even supposing that there were
foramina or pores in this situation, how could one of the
ventricles extract anything from the other--the left, e.g.,
obtain blood from the right, when we see that both ventricles
contract and dilate simultaneously? Why should we not rather
believe that the right took spirits from the left, than that the
left obtained blood from the right ventricle through these
foramina? But it is certainly mysterious and incongruous that
blood should be supposed to be most commodiously drawn through a
set of obscure or invisible ducts, and air through perfectly open
passages, at one and the same moment. And why, I ask, is recourse
had to secret and invisible porosities, to uncertain and obscure
channels, to explain the passage of the blood into the left
ventricle, when there is so open a way through the pulmonary
veins? I own it has always appeared extraordinary to me that they
should have chosen to make, or rather to imagine, a way through
the thick, hard, dense, and most compact septum of the heart,
rather than take that by the open pulmonary vein, or even through
the lax, soft and spongy substance of the lungs at large.
Besides, if the blood could permeate the substance of the septum,
or could be imbibed from the ventricles, what use were there for
the coronary artery and vain, branches of which proceed to the
septum itself, to supply it with nourishment? And what is
especially worthy of notice is this: if in the foetus, where
everything is more lax and soft, nature saw herself reduced to
the necessity of bringing the blood from the right to the left
side of the heart by the foramen ovale, from the vena cava
through the pulmonary vein, how should it be likely that in the
adult she should pass it so commodiously, and without an effort
through the septum of the ventricles which has now become denser
by age?

Andreas Laurentius, [Footnote: Lib. ix, cap. xi, quest. 12.]
resting on the authority of Galen [Footnote: De Locis Affectia.
lib. vi, cap. 7.] and the experience of Hollerius, asserts and
proves that the serum and pus in empyema, absorbed from the
cavities of the chest into the pulmonary vein may be expelled and
got rid of with the urine and feces through the left ventricle of
the heart and arteries. He quotes the case of a certain person
affected with melancholia, and who suffered from repeated
fainting fits, who was relieved from the paroxysms on passing a
quantity of turbid, fetid and acrid urine. But he died at last,
worn out by disease; and when the body came to be opened after
death, no fluid like that he had micturated was discovered either
in the bladder or the kidneys; but in the left ventricle of the
heart and cavity of the thorax plenty of it was met with. And
then Laurentius boasts that he had predicted the cause of the
symptoms. For my own part, however, I cannot but wonder, since he
had divined and predicted that heterogeneous matter could be
discharged by the course he indicates, why he could not or would
not perceive, and inform us that, in the natural state of things,
the blood might be commodiously transferred from the lungs to the
left ventricle of the heart by the very same route.

Since, therefore, from the foregoing considerations and many
others to the same effect, it is plain that what has heretofore
been said concerning the motion and function of the heart and
arteries must appear obscure, inconsistent, or even impossible to
him who carefully considers the entire subject, it would be
proper to look more narrowly into the matter to contemplate the
motion of the heart and arteries, not only in man, but in all
animals that have hearts; and also, by frequent appeals to
vivisection, and much ocular inspection, to investigate and
discern the truth.