294 Dr Craigie's Observations on the 



if not accurately examined ; and the cava under the name chilis 

 a corruption from the Greek ««<aii, is treated at length, with the 

 emulgents and kidneys. His anatomy of the heart is accurate, 

 and it is a remarkable fact, which seems to be omitted by all 

 subsequent authors, that his description contains the rudiments 

 of the circulation of the blood. *' Postea vero versus pulmonem 

 est aliud orificium venae arterialis, quae portat sanguinem ad 

 pulmonem, a corde ; quia cum pulmo deserviat cordi secundum 

 modum dictum ut ei recompenset, cor ei transmlttit sanguinem 

 per banc venam, quae vocatur vena arterialis, et vena quae por- 

 tat sanguinem, et arterialis, quia habet duas tunicas ; et habet 

 duas tunicas, primo quia vadit ad membrum quod existit in 

 continuo motu, et secundoquia portat sanguinem valde subtilem 

 et cholericum."" The merit of these distinctions, however, he af- 

 terwards destroys by repeating the old assertion, that the left 

 ventricle ought to contain spirit, which it generates from the blood. 



His osteology of the skull is erroneous. In his account of 

 the cerebral membranes, though short, he notices the principal 

 characters of the dura mater. He describes shortly the lateral 

 ventricles, with their anterior and posterior cornua, and the cho- 

 roid plexus as a blood-red substance, like a long worm. H^ 

 then speaks of the third or middle ventricle, and one posterior, 

 which seems to correspond with the fourth ; and describes the 

 infundibulum under the names of lacuna and emhoton. The in- 

 ferior recesses he appears to have omitted. In the base of the 

 organ he remarks, first, two mammillary caruncles, the origins 

 of the olfactory nerves, which, however, he overlooks ; the optic 

 nerves, which he reckons the first pair ; the oculo-muscular, 

 which he accounts the second ; the third, which appears to be 

 the sixth of the moderns ; the fourth ; the fifth, evidently the 

 seventh ; a sixth, the nervus vagus \ and a seventh, which is the 

 ninth of the moderns. 



Notwithstanding the misrepresentations into which this early 

 anatomist was betrayed, his book, which has been illustrated by 

 the successive commentaries of Achillini, Berenger, and Dry- 

 ander, is valuable, and formed for at least a century the text- 

 book of all the anatomical schools. 



Mathew de Gradibus, a native of Gradi, a town in Friuli 

 near Milan, and Professor of Medicine at Pa via, distinguished 

 himself by composing a series of treatises on the anatomy of 



