Medicine. 205 



laborious and successful dissection. After him 

 appeared Sylvius in France, Columbus, Fallo- 

 prus and EusTACHius, in Italy; whose discoveries 

 and improvements v^ere so numerous as to give a 

 deep impression of the zeal and enthusiasm with 

 which the knowledo:e of the structure of the hu- 

 man body was cultivated at that early period. 



Soon after the time of the last mentioned writers 

 the study of anatomy was gradually diffused over 

 all Europe. The principal impediment to its pro- 

 gress, in that age, was the difficulty of obtaining 

 human subjects for dissection; the want of which 

 frequently made it necessary to dissect the bodies 

 of brutes. 



With the dawn of the seventeenth century new 

 lights were shed upon anatomical inquiries from 

 every quarter. At this time Fabricius ab Aqua- 

 PENDENTE, an eminent Italian teacher, published 

 his account of the valves in the veins, which evi- 

 dently affected the established doctrine of all 

 former ages, that the veins carried the blood from 

 the liver for nourishment to all parts of the body. 

 The detection of these valves may also justly be 

 supposed to have laid the foundation of the disco- 

 very of the circulation of the blood. 



For Dr. Harvey, the pupil of Fabricius, was 

 reserved, soon afterwards, the noble discovery of 

 the circulation of the blood. This was by far a more 

 important step in the knowledge of animal bodies 

 than had ever been made before, and gave a new 

 spring to anatomical inquiries. In a few years 

 after Harvey's discovery, Aselltus, an Italian 

 physician, found out the lacteals, or vessels which 

 carry the chyle from the intestines. And about 

 the middle of the seventeenth century Pecquet, 

 in France, was so fortunate as to discover the 

 thoracic ducty or common trunk of all the lacteals, 

 which conveys the chyle into the subclavian vein, 



