Letters 177 



anatomist,, and, as you say, formerly your teacher: 

 invincible truth has, indeed, taught the scholar to 

 vanquish the master. I was myself preparing a sponge 

 for his most recent arguments ; but intent upon my 

 work " On the Generation of Animals " (which, but just 

 come forth, I send to you), I have not had leisure to 

 produce it. And now I rather rejoice in the silence, 

 as from your supplement I perceive that it has led you 

 to come forward with your excellent reflections, to the 

 common advantage of the world of letters. For I see 

 that in your most ornate book (I speak without flattery), 

 you have skilfully and nervously confuted all his 

 machinations against the circulation, and successfully 

 thrown down the scaffolding of his more recent opinions. 

 I am, therefore, but little solicitous about labouring at 

 any ulterior answer. Many things might, indeed, be 

 adduced in confirmation of the truth, and several 

 calculated to shed clearer light on the art of medicine ; 

 but of these we shall perhaps see further by and by. 



Meantime, as Riolanus uses his utmost efforts U> 

 oppose the passage of the blood into the left ven- 

 tricle through the lungs, and brings it all hither through 

 the septum, and so vaunts himself upon having upset 

 the very foundations of the Harveian circulation 

 (although I have nowhere assumed such a basis for my 

 doctrine ; for there is a circulation in many red-blooded 

 animals that have no lungs), it may be well here to 

 relate an experiment which I lately tried in the presence 

 of several of my colleagues, and from the cogency of 

 which there is no means of escape for him. Having 

 tied the pulmonary artery, the pulmonary veins, and 

 the aorta, in the body of a man who had been hanged^ 

 and then opened the left ventricle of the heart, we 

 passed a tube through the vena cava into the right 

 ventricle of the heart, and having, at the same time,, 

 attached an ox's bladder to the tube, in the same way 

 as a clyster-bag is usually made, we filled it nearly full 

 of warm water, and forcibly injected the fluid into the 



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