Heart and Blood 33 



whiteness indicated is most conspicuous towards the 

 extremities or edges of the auricles at the time of their 

 contractions. 



In fishes and frogs, and other animals which have 

 hearts with but a single ventricle, and for an auricle 

 have a kind of bladder much distended with blood, at 

 the base of the organ, you may very plainly perceive 

 this bladder contracting first, and the contraction of 

 the heart or ventricle following afterwards. 



But I think it right to describe what I have observed 

 of an opposite character : the heart of an eel, of several 

 fishes, and even of some [of the higher] animals taken 

 out of the body, beats without auricles ; nay, if it be 

 cut in pieces the several parts may still be seen 

 contracting and relaxing ; so that in these creatures the 

 body of the heart may be seen pulsating, palpitating, 

 after the cessation of all motion in the auricle. But is 

 not this perchance peculiar to animals more tenacious 

 of life, whose radical moisture is more glutinous, or 

 fat and sluggish, and less readily soluble ? The same 

 faculty indeed appears in the flesh of eels, generally, 

 which even when skinned and embowelled, and cut into 

 pieces, are still seen to move. 



Experimenting with a pigeon upon one occasion, 

 after the heart had wholly ceased to pulsate, and the 

 auricles too had become motionless, I kept my finger 

 wetted with saliva and warm for a short time upon the 

 heart, and observed, that under the influence of this 

 fomentation it recovered new strength and life, so that 

 both ventricles and auricles pulsated, contracting and 

 relaxing alternately, recalled as it were from death to 

 life. 



Besides this, however, I have occasionally observed,, 

 after the heart and even its right auricle had ceased 

 pulsating, when it was in articulo mortis in short, 

 that an obscure motion, an undulation or palpitation, 

 remained in the blood itself, which was contained in 

 the right auricle, this being apparent so long as it was 



D 



