Heart and Blood 73 



indeed Avicenna has it, and of all oppressive redun- 

 dancy in parts, that the access to them is open, but 

 the egress from them is closed ? Whence it comes 

 that they are gorged and tumefied. And may not the 

 same thing happen in local inflammations, where, so 

 long as the swelling is on the increase, and has not 

 reached its extreme term, a full pulse is felt in the 

 part, especially when the disease is of the more acute 

 kind, and the swelling usually takes place most rapidly. 

 But these are matters for after discussion. Or does 

 this, which occurred in my own case, happen from 

 the same cause ? Thrown from a carriage upon one 

 occasion, I struck my forehead a blow upon the place 

 where a twig of the artery advances from the temple, 

 and immediately, within the time in which twenty beats 

 could have been made, I felt a tumour the size of an 

 egg developed, without either heat or any great pain : 

 the near vicinity of the artery had caused the blood 

 to be effused into the bruised part with unusual force 

 and quickness. 



And now, too, we understand wherefore in phlebo- 

 tomy we apply our fillet above the part that is punctured, 

 not below it ; did the flow come from above, not from 

 below, the bandage in this case would not only be 

 of no service, but would prove a positive hinderance ; 

 it would have to be applied below the orifice, in order 

 to have the flow more free, did the blood descend by 

 the veins from superior to inferior parts ; but as it is 

 elsewhere forced through the extreme arteries into the 

 extreme veins, and the return in these last is opposed 

 by the ligature, so do they fill and swell, and being 

 thus filled and distended, they are made capable of 

 projecting their charge with force, and to a distance, 

 when any one of them is suddenly punctured ; but 

 the fillet being slackened, and the returning channels 

 thus left open, the blood forthwith no longer escapes, 

 save by drops ; and, as all the world knows, if in per- 

 forming phlebotomy the bandage be either slackened 



