Circulation of the Blood 155 



whole of the veins of the body towards the base of the 

 heart, and that unless there was a further passage 

 afforded it, it would be pent up in these channels, 

 or would oppress and overwhelm the heart ; as on the 

 other hand, did it not flow outwards by the arteries, but 

 was found regurgitating, it would soon be seen how 

 much it would oppress. 



I add another observation. A noble knight, Sir 

 Robert Darcy, an ancestor of that celebrated physician 

 and most learned man, my very dear friend Dr. Argent, 

 when he had reached to about the middle period of 

 life, made frequent complaint of a certain distressing 

 pain in the chest, especially in the night season ; so that 

 dreading at one time syncope, at another suffocation in 

 his attacks he led an unquiet and anxious life. He 

 tried many remedies in vain, having had the advice 

 of almost every medical man. The disease going on 

 from bad to worse, he by and by became cachectic and 

 dropsical, and finally, grievously distressed, he died in 

 one of his paroxysms. In the body of this gentleman, 

 at the inspection of which there were present Dr. Argent, 

 then president of the College of Physicians, and Dr. 

 Gorge, a distinguished theologian and preacher, who 

 was pastor of the parish, we found the wall of the left 

 ventricle of the heart ruptured, having a rent in it of 

 size sufficient to admit any of my fingers, although the 

 wall itself appeared sufficiently thick and strong ; this 

 laceration had apparently been caused by an impediment 

 to the passage of the blood from the left ventricle into 

 the arteries. 



I was acquainted with another strong man, who 

 having received an injury and affront from one more 

 powerful than himself, and upon whom he could not 

 have his revenge, was so overcome with hatred and 

 spite and passion, which he yet communicated to no 

 one, that at last he fell into a strange distemper, suffer- 

 ing from extreme oppression and pain of the heart and 

 breast, and the prescriptions of none of the very best 



