sECT.iv.] ANIMAL SPIRITS NOT IN THE VENTRICLES. 371 



function incompatible with that of the spirits, namely, to collect 

 and excrete the effete matters. These arguments, whatever 

 validity they might have, were sufficient to lead many from the 

 doctrines of Galen, and to convince them that the ventricles of 

 the brain are not the factories and storehouses of the spirits, 

 but only established for the collection and expulsion of the effete 

 matters. Riolanus the son,^ endeavoured to remedy this neglect 

 of the doctrine, and tried to weaken and explode the arguments 

 of Hoffmann, and while he defended the doctrine of Galen, he 

 in some measure adopted that of Aristotle. He taught that 

 the animal spirits are generated from the vital in the ventri- 

 cles of the brain alone, and diffused thence through the whole 

 cerebrum ; that the air inspired through the nostrils does not 

 enter the ventricles, nor is it mixed with the spirits, but being 

 diffused round the dense membrane [dura mater] cools the 

 brain, as the inspired air cools the lung ; and that the convo- 

 lutions are so constructed for the sake of lightness and the 

 distribution of the arteries. He more particularly blamed 

 Hoffmann, and charged him with ignorance, because that by 

 his new dogma he unsettled both the whole pathology and 

 therapeutics of the brain, for he fixed the seat of epilepsy 

 and apoplexy in the whole substance of the brain, and not in 

 the ventricles, as Galen taught. And this argument is that 

 with which physicians are accustomed to meet new dogmas, 

 when opposed to their own, even if true, lest they should be 

 compelled by shame to unlearn when old those things which they 

 have learnt in youth. Harvey was met with almost a similar 

 argument, and considered as an audacious man, a disturber of 

 medical peace, and a seditious citizen of the medical republic, 

 who first dared to unsettle the doctrine established by unanimous 

 assent for many ages, confirmed by the writings of so many 

 physicians, and handed down, as it were, from generation to 

 generation, as if no one knew any thing for so many ages.^ 



Wepfer fully refuted Riolan in his 'Auctarium Historiarum 

 Apoplecticorum et Exercitationis de loco Apoplexia affecto,^ 

 and duly interred the doctrines as to the use of the ventricles 

 in producing and retaining the animal spirits. 



' Enchirid. Anat. 



' In Zacchar. Sylvii praefat. ad Harveii Exercit. Anat. de Circulatione Sanguinis. 

 Vide Biblioth. Anatom. Mangeti. 



