Iviii THE LIFE OF HARVEY. 



that it is without vessels and properties, is not adapted to ac- 

 complish that communication and elaboration, although some- 

 thing may transude through it." 



The discussion in this passage from Servetus obviously con- 

 cerns the generation of the vital spirit, not the pulmonic cir- 

 culation properly so called that is altogether secondary and 

 subordinate. His mention of "numerous communications 

 between the vena arteriosa and the arteria venosa," is plainly 

 conjectural ; neither he, nor any one else for a century after 

 him, saw such communications. The course through the 

 lungs, then, as suggested by Servetus, was a mere hypothetical 

 proposal for getting over the difficulty of the solid, or nearly 

 solid, septum ventriculorum. As to the means by which such 

 a transfusion as he suggests, is effected, Servetus, as he was 

 profoundly ignorant himself, so does he leave his readers en- 

 tirely in the dark. The transmission of the blood from the 

 right to the left side of the heart, which Servetus proposed, is 

 in fact, no great improvement on the old efflux and reflux, 

 like the tides of Euripus, betwixt Attica and Euboea. He had 

 no conception of a circle of the blood beginning and ending 

 in the heart. On the contrary, he regarded the liver as the 

 fountain-head of the blood; and if he has any reference to a 

 moving power in connexion with the heart, it is nothing more 

 than the diastole or dilatation of the organ that is named a 

 passive state therefore considered as an active and efficient 

 cause, which is absurd. 



The first modern anatomist of high repute, who treats par- 

 ticularly of the motion of the blood, may be said to be Realdus 

 Columbus j 1 for Servetus, though educated to the medical pro- 

 fession, had long forsaken it for divinity, and only uses his old 

 anatomical knowledge as a means of illustrating a theological 

 dogma. Columbus, in treating of the heart and lungs, has 

 certainly much that is remarkable, and much that is true; 

 1 De Re Anatomica, fo!. Venet. 1559. 



