72 MOTION OF THE 



forced into the lungs and rendered thick, does not pass through 

 their substance, (as I have myself seen in opening the bodies of 

 those who had died in the beginning of the attack,) when the 

 pulse is always frequent, small, and occasionally irregular; but 

 the heat increasing, the matter becoming attenuated, the 

 passages forced, and the transit made, the whole body begins 

 to rise in temperature, and the pulse becomes fuller, stronger 

 the febrile paroxysm is fully formed, whilst the preternatural 

 heat kindled in the heart, is thence diffused by the arteries 

 through the whole body along with the morbific matter, which 

 is in this way overcome and dissolved by nature. 



When we perceive, further, that medicines applied externally 

 exert their influence on the body just as if they had been taken 

 internally, the truth we are contending for is confirmed. Colo- 

 cynth and aloes [applied externally] move the belly, can- 

 tharides excites the urine, garlic applied to the soles of the 

 feet assists expectoration, cordials strengthen, and an infinite 

 number of examples of the same kind might be cited. It 

 will not, therefore, be found unreasonable perchance, if we 

 say that the veins, by means of their orifices, absorb some of 

 the things that are applied externally and carry this inwards 

 with the blood, not otherwise, it may be, than those of the 

 mesentery imbibe the chyle from the intestines and carry it 

 mixed with the blood to the liver. For the blood entering 

 the mesentery by the cceliac artery, and the superior and 

 inferior mesenteries, proceeds to the intestines, from which, 

 along with the chyle that has been attracted into the veins, 

 it returns by their numerous ramifications into the vena portas 

 of the liver, and from this into the vena cava, and this in 

 such wise that the blood in these veins has the same colour 

 and consistency as in other veins, in opposition to what 

 many believe to be the fact. Nor indeed can we imagine two 

 contrary motions in any capillary system the chyle up- 

 wards, the blood downwards. This could scarcely take place, 

 and must be held as altogether improbable. But is not the 

 thing rather arranged as it is by the consummate providence of 

 nature ? For were the chyle mingled with the blood, the crude 

 with the concocted, in equal proportions, the result would not 

 be concoction, transmutation, and sanguification, but rather, 

 and because they are severally active and passive, a mixture or 



