ANDRONOMY. 405 



confounded the nerves with the muscles ; in saying that the nerves 

 originate in the heart. 



Anatomy was cultivated in Egypt, under the Ptolemies, by Hero- 

 philus and Erasistratus, the two earliest physicians who are recorded 

 as having dissected human bodies. The former first taught osteo- 

 logy from the human skeleton ; and traced the nerves from the brain 

 and spinal marrow : and the latter first asserted that digestion is per- 

 formed by the action of the stomach ; regarding the nerves as the 

 primary organs of sense and of motion. At length, Galen, who had 

 been educated at Alexandria, collected the andronomical knowledge 

 of his predecessors, in a text book, which was adopted by all civil- 

 ized nations down to modern times ; and especially by the Arabians, 

 whose religion prohibited dissection, and made them depend on other 

 sources for a knowledge of the human frame. Galen held the liver 

 to be the origin of the veins ; and the heart, of the arteries : but he 

 has the merit of giving prominence to the doctrine of final causes; 

 insisting that every organ must have its appropriate functions : a 

 principle which has perhaps been of greater service to Andronomy 

 than to any other science. 



In modern times, the practice of Anatomy was revived by Mon- 

 dini, or Mundinus, who first made public dissections, at Bologna, in 

 1315; and who published a regular treatise on this science: but a 

 far better work was produced by Vesalius, about 1550, founded on 

 his own observations. The anatomy of the ear, was soon after 

 investigated by Fallopius and Eustachius ; and that of the eye, by 

 Meibomius. Meanwhile, Servetus, who was burnt as a heretic, at 

 Geneva, in 1553, had noticed the smaller circulation of the blood, 

 between the heart and lungs : and Caesalpinus inferred a motion of 

 the blood in the veins, from their swelling on the application of a 

 ligature. Silvius discovered valves in the veins, and Fabricius 

 Aquapendente noticed that they were all turned towards the heart : 

 but the great discovery of the general circulation of the blood, from the 

 heart, through the arteries, and back to the heart through the veins, 

 was first made by Harvey, in 1619 ; and published in 1628. 



The lacteal vessels had been noticed by Eristratus, in ancient 

 times; bat they were rediscovered by Asellius, in 1622; and their 

 use in conveying chyle into the blood, was ascertained by Pecquet, 

 in 1651. The lymphatic vessels, were first noticed by Rudbeck, of 

 Sweden; and their valves by Ruysch, of Holland: their use being 

 to absorb superfluous fluids from various parts, and return the same 

 to the blood. The injection of small blood vessels for dissection, 

 first practised by Silvius, was greatly improved by Swammerdam ; 

 who, in 1672, used melted wax for this purpose ; which, hardening 

 as it cools, gives an exact cast of the vessels injected. Borelli was 

 the first to show that the muscles, which in the dead body have but 

 little strength, are capable, in the living animal, of sustaining an 

 enormous tension ; acting, as many of them do, at a great disadvan- 

 tage, in producing force or motion. The gastric juice of the stomach 

 was first noticed and examined by Boyle, and Ray : and Mayow 

 first promulgated accurate ideas concerning the nature of respiration. 

 Haller studied and wrote very extensively on Andronomy ; and he 



