AN ANATOMICAL STUDY ON THE 



pulmonary vein as a result of the heart beat and 

 the movement of the lungs and thorax. (Consult 

 Hofmann's excellent Commentary on Galen's 6th 

 Book, De Usu ParL, which I saw after writing this.)* 

 The heart, further, continually receives blood in its 

 ventricles, as into a cistern, and expels it. For this 

 reason, it has four kinds of valves, two regulating 

 inflow, and two outflow, so blood will not be in- 

 conveniently shifted back and forth like Euripus, 

 neither flowing back into the part from which it 

 should come, nor quitting that to which it should 

 pass, lest the heart be wearied by vain labor and 

 respiration be impeded. Finally, our assertion is 

 clearly apparent, that the blood continually flows 

 from the right to the left ventricle, from the vena 

 cava to the aorta, through the porosities of the 

 lung. 



Since blood is constantly sent from the right 

 ventricle into the lungs through the pulmonary 



^ Caspar Hofmann (i 572-1648) was Professor of Medicine at Alt- 

 dorf, and well recognized as one of the leading authorities on Galen. 

 The book to which Harvey refers, Comment, in Galen, de usu part.y 

 was published at Frankfort in 1625 (H. Haeser, Geschichte der Medicin, 

 Jena, 1881, Vol. 2, p. 264). In 1636, Lord Arundel took his friend 

 Harvey with him on a diplomatic mission to Vienna regarding a 

 peace during the Thirty Years' War. Harvey wrote to Hofmann, offer- 

 ing in a very manly way to demonstrate his doctrines, which he had 

 heard Hofmann opposed. See R. Willis' translation for the Sydenham 

 Society, 1847, p. 595- "Tradition says that Harvey actually gave this 

 demonstration in public, and that it proved satisfactory to everyone 

 except Hofmann himself. The old man — then past the grand cli- 

 macteric — remained unconvinced, and as he continued to urge ob- 

 jections, Harvey at length threw down his knife and walked out of 

 the theatre" (D'Arcy Power's fVilliam Harvey. Lond., 1897, p. 114)- 



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