AN ANATOMICAL STUDY ON THE 



it is convenient for these animals to have lungs 

 and another ventricle to send nouishment through 

 these lungs. 



Wherever there are lungs there are two ventricles 

 in the heart, a right and left, and wherever there 

 is a right there is also a left, but not the reverse. 

 I call that the left ventricle which is distinguished 

 by function, not position, the one namely that sends 

 blood to the whole body, not merely to the lungs. 

 This left ventricle seems to comprise the real heart. 

 It is medianly placed, marked with deeper furrows, 

 and made with greater care, so that the heart seems 

 to have been formed for the sake of the left ventricle. 

 The right ventricle is a sort of servant to the left, 

 it does not reach to the apex, its walls are three- 

 fold thinner, and it is somehow joined on to the 

 left, as Aristotle says. Its capacity indeed is greater 

 since it not only furnishes material to the left but 

 also nourishment to the lungs. 



It is noteworthy that this is otherwise in the 

 embryo, where there is no such difference between 

 the ventricles. As in the double kernels of a nut, 

 they about equal each other, and the tip of the 

 right reaches the apex of the left, so that the heart 

 appears as a double-pointed cone. Here, as I have 

 said, blood does not pass through the lungs from 



through some of the chapters of this book, are full of the many con- 

 tradictions against which he is so bitter in the Introduction. In the 

 present instance, for example, it was also taught that respiration 

 existed for cooling the heart, to keep the blood from boiling and ex- 

 tinction (Note 3, Chapter VI). 



[Ii8l 



