THEORY OF NUTRITION. 003 



heart to contract, by which it is impelled into the 

 ultimate tissues of the whole body, where the 

 caloric just received in the lungs, together with a 

 portion of arterial blood, percolate the delicate 

 coats of the capillaries, unite with the solids by 

 vital affinity, and form the various secretions by 

 glandular action. 



As proofs of what has just been stated, the tem- 

 perature, vital activity, and renovation of all the 

 organs, are constantly maintained at the expense 

 of arterial blood, during its conversion into the 

 venous state, while passing through the systemic 

 capillaries, where its temperature is reduced, the 

 number of its organic particles diminished, and 

 its power of sustaining the healthy state of the 

 different functions is greatly impaired, when it 

 returns to the lungs for a fresh supply of organic 

 particles, and of living fire. If the temperature 

 of the blood were not raised above that of the 

 solids while passing through the lungs, there could 

 be no transition of caloric from one to the other 



and sanguification, that he speaks of the former as a cooling pro- 

 cess ; while he referred the dark or livid colour of what we call 

 venous blood, to the contraction of the heart, and the rubicund 

 or florid hue of what is now called arterial blood, to its dilatation. 

 And so little did he know in regard to the office of the brain, 

 that he represents the mind (yvwpj) of man as seated in the left 

 ventricle of the heart. But as Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Demo- 

 critus, and Heraclitus, regarded the brain as the organ of mind, 

 it may well be doubted whether Hippocrates was the real author 

 of the Treatise ascribed to him, on the Heart. 



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