CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 127 



and lingual veins are incised, the blood is made to flow more 

 freely by compressing the neck and holding the breath. I 

 have several times opened the breast and pericardium of a man 

 within two hours after his execution by hanging, and before 

 the colour had totally left the face, and in presence of many 

 witnesses, have demonstrated the right auricle of the heart and 

 the lungs distended with blood ; the auricle in particular of the 

 size of a large man's fist, and so full of blood that it looked as 

 if it would burst. This great distension, however, had disap- 

 peared next day, the body having stiifened and become cold, 

 and the blood having made its escape through various channels. 

 These and other similar facts, therefore, make it sufficiently 

 certain that the blood flows through the whole of the veins of 

 the body towards the base of the heart, and that unless there 

 was a further passage afforded it, it would be pent up in these 

 channels, or would oppress and overwhelm the heart; as on the 

 other hand, did it not flow outwards by the arteries, but was 

 found regurgitating, it would soon be seen how much it would 

 oppress. 



I add another observation. A noble knight, Sir Robert Darcy, 

 an ancestor of that celebrated physician and most learned man, 

 my very dear friend Dr. Argent, when he had reached to about 

 the middle period of life, made frequent complaint of a certain 

 distressing pain in the chest, especially in the night season; 

 so that dreading at one time syncope, at another suffocation in 

 his attacks he led an unquiet and anxious life. He tried many 

 remedies in vain, having had the advice of almost every medical 

 man. The disease going on from bad to worse, he by and by 

 became cachectic and dropsical, and finally, grievously distressed, 

 he died in one of his paroxysms. In the body of this gentle- 

 man, at the inspection of which there were present Dr. Argent, 

 then president of the College of Physicians, and Dr. Gorge, 

 a distinguished theologian and preacher, who was pastor of 

 the parish, we found the wall of the left ventricle of the heart 

 ruptured, having a rent in it of size sufficient to admit any of 

 my fingers, although the wall itself appeared sufficiently thick 

 and strong; this laceration had apparently been caused by an 

 impediment to the passage of the blood from the left ventricle 

 into the arteries. 



I was acquainted with another strong man, who having re- 



