Heart and Blood 105 



fibres and its general structure. All anatomists admit 

 with Galen that the body of the heart is made up of 

 various courses of fibres running straight, obliquely, 

 and transversely, with reference to one another; but 

 in a heart which has been boiled the arrangement of 

 the fibres is seen to be different : all the fibres in the 

 parietes and septum are circular, as in the sphincters ; 

 those, again, which are in the columnae extend length- 

 wise, and are oblique longitudinally ; and so it comes 

 to pass, that when all the fibres contract simultaneously, 

 the apex of the cone is pulled towards its base by the 

 columnar, the walls are drawn circularly together into a 

 globe, the whole heart in short is contracted, and the 

 ventricles narrowed ; it is therefore impossible not to 

 perceive that, as the action of the organ is so plainly 

 contraction, its function is to propel the blood into the 

 arteries. 



Nor are we the less to agree with Aristotle in regard 

 to the sovereignty of the heart ; nor are we to inquire 

 whether it receives sense and motion from the brain ? 

 whether blood from the liver ? whether it be the origin 

 of the veins and of the blood ? and more of the same 

 description. They who affirm these propositions against 

 Aristotle, overlook, or do not rightly understand the 

 principal argument, to the effect that the heart is the 

 first part which exists, and that it contains within itself 

 blood, life, sensation, motion, before either the brain 

 or the liver were in being, or had appeared distinctly, 

 or, at all events, before they could perform any function. 

 The heart, ready furnished with its proper organs of 

 motion, like a kind of internal creature, is of a date 

 anterior to the body : first formed, nature willed that it 

 should afterwards fashion, nourish, preserve, complete 

 the entire animal, as its work and dwelling place : the 

 heart, like the prince in a kingdom, in whose hands lie 

 the chief and highest authority, rules over all ; it is the 

 original and foundation from which all power is derived, 

 on which all power depends in the animal body. 



