2O On the Heart and Blood 



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, and extremely compact 

 substance of the septum cordis, rather than to take that 

 by the open vas venosum or 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 vein, 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 into the left side of the heart by the 

 foramen ovale, from the vena cava through the arteria 

 venosa, how should it be likely that in the adult she 

 should pass it so commodiously, and without an effort, 

 through the septum ventriculorum, which has now 

 become denser by age ? 



Andreas Laurentius, 1 resting on the authority of 

 Galen 2 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 faeces 

 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 the 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 in 

 the kidneys ; but in the left ventricle of the heart and 

 cavity of the thorax plenty of it was met with ; and then 



1 Lib. ix, cap. xi, quest. 12. 



a De Locis Affectis., lib. vi, cap. 7. 



