434 Harvey's Ideas of Embryonic Nutrition 



"Wherefore Fabricius has rightly observed, that in some animals the 'con- 

 ception' is scarcely attached to the uterus at all. Thus the sow and the mare 

 have no such fleshy mode of union,— but in them the ovum or 'conception,' 

 as in the beginning it is formed out of the humours of the uterus, so it is 

 nourished subsequently by the same means; just as the ovum of the hen is 

 supplied with aliment at the expense of the albuminous matter without any 

 connexion whatever with the uterus: and thus the foetus is furnished with 

 aliment by the 'conception' in which it is contained, and is nourished as the 

 chick is from the fluids of the egg. This is a strong argument that the foetus 

 of viviparous animals is no more nourished by the blood of the mother than 

 the chick in the egg; and moreover, that the fluid within the chorion is neither 

 urine nor any other excrementitious matter; but serves for the support of the 

 foetus. Although as I have before remarked, it is possible when all the nutrient 

 portions have been taken up, the remainder may degenerate into excrementi- 

 tious matter resembling urine. This is also clear from what I formerly observed 

 of the cotyledons in the deer, viz., that in these animals the fleshy mass was 

 of a spongy character, and constituted, like a honeycomb, of innumerable 

 shallow pits filled with a muco-albuminous fluid (a circumstance already ob- 

 served by Galen); and that from this source the ramifications of the umbilical 

 vessels absorbed the nutriment and carried it to the foetus: just as, in animals 

 after their birth, the extremities of the mesenteric vessels are spread over the 

 coats of the intestines and thence take up chyle" (p. 561-562). 



In regard to the role of the so-called "spirits" in nutrition, he asserted that 

 "They who advocate incorporeal spirits have no ground of experience to stand 

 upon; their spirits indeed are synonymous with powers or faculties, such as 

 a concoctive spirit, a chylopoietic spirit, a procreative spirit, etc.— they admit 

 as many spirits, in short, as there are faculties or organs" (p. 116). 



"For if the spirits exhaling from the blood, like the vapour of water at- 

 tenuated by heat, exist in a state of constant flow and succession as the pabu- 

 lum of the tissues, it necessarily follows that they are not distinct from this 

 pabulum, but are incessantly disappearing; whereby it seems that they can 

 neither have influx nor reflux, nor passage, nor yet remain at rest without 

 the influx, the reflux, the passage (or stasis) of the blood, which is the fluid 

 that serves as their vehicle or pabulum" (p. 118). 



He remained skeptical regarding the role of the lacteals and lymphatics in 

 nutrition for he held that "Even as the umbilical veins absorb the nutritive 

 juices from the fluids of the egg and transport them for the nutrition and 

 growth of the chick, in its embryo state, so do the meseraic veins suck up the 

 chyle from the intestines and transfer it to the liver; and why should we not 

 maintain that they perform the same office in the adult?" (p. 95). In his first 

 letter to Riolan, written in 1649, Harvey further declared, "I shall elsewhere 

 state my views of the lacteal veins when I treat of the milk found in different 

 parts of new-born animals, especially of the human subject; for it is met with 



