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SECT. XLIV. 



OP THE GROWTH, STATIONARY CONDITION, AND 

 DECREASE OP THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 



640. Nothing more remains, at present than to 

 survey at one view the natural course of the life of 

 man, whose animal functions we have hitherto arranged 

 in classes and examined individually, and to accom- 

 pany him through his principal epochs from his birth 

 to his grave.* 



641. The commencement of formation appears to take 

 place about the third week from conception (569), and 

 genuine blood is first observable about the fourth, the 

 life of the foetus at this period being extremely faint (82) 

 and little more than that of a vegetable; the motion 

 of the heart (98) has, under fortunate circumstances, 

 been observable at this time in the human embryo,f 

 though long ago detected by Aristotle in the incubated 

 egg% and ever since his time denominated the punctum 

 saliens. 



The original form of the embryo is simple, and, as it 

 were, disguised, wonderfully different from the perfect 

 conformation of the human frame, which deserves to 



* Vide Const. Anast. Philites, De decremento seu de ntaratmo senili. Hal. 

 1808. 8vo. 



f Vide J. de Muralto, Ephemerida N. C. Dec. ii. ann. 1. p. 305. 



Roume de St. Laurent, in Rower's Obs. et mhn. ». la physique. Juillet. 1775. 

 p. 53. 



X Aristotle, Hiit. Animal. L. ri. cap. 3. Opera. Vol. ii. p. 326. 



