MOTION OF THE HEART AND BLOOD 



Besides this I have sometimes noticed, after the 

 heart and even the right auricle had completely 

 stopped beating, that a slight motion or palpitation 

 remained in the blood in the right auricle, as long 

 as it seemed imbued with heat and spirit. 



Something similar is very apparent in embryology, 

 as may be seen during the first seven days of the 

 hatching of a hen's egg. First, before anything else, 

 a drop of blood appears, which throbs, as Aristotle 

 had noted. From this, with increasing growth and 

 formation of the chick, the auricles of the heart are 

 made, in the pulsations of which there is continual 

 evidence of life. After a few more days, when the 

 body is outlined, the rest of the heart is made, but for 

 some time it remains pale and bloodless like the rest 

 of the body, and does not throb. I have seen a 

 similar condition in a human embryo about the 

 beginning of the third month, the ventricles being 

 pale and bloodless, but the auricles containing some 

 purple blood. In the egg, when the fetus forms and 

 develops, the heart grows also and acquires ventricles, 

 with which blood is received and transmitted. 



Whoever examines this matter closely will not 

 say that the heart entirely is the first to live and the 

 last to die, but rather the auricles (or that part 

 corresponding to the auricles in serpents, fishes, 

 and such animals) which live before the rest of the 

 heart, and die after it. 



I should say rather that the blood itself or spirit 

 has in it an obscure throbbing which it seems to hold 



[43] 



