THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 435 



blood-vessels, as sound as those which he enter- 

 tained concerning the muscles. He held the liver 

 to be the origin of the veins, and the heart of tne 

 arteries. He was, however, acquainted with their 

 junctions, or anastomoses. But we find no material 

 advance in the knowledge of this subject, till we 

 overleap the blank of the middle ages, and reach 

 the dawn of modern science. 



The father of modern anatomy is held to be 

 Mondino 6 , who dissected and taught at Bologna in 

 1315. Some writers have traced in him the rudi- 

 ments of the doctrine of the circulation of the 

 blood ; for he says, that the heart transmits blood 

 to the lungs. But it is allowed, that he afterwards 

 destroys the merit of his remark, by repeating the old 

 assertion that the left ventricle ought to contain 

 spirit or air, which it generates from the blood. 



Anatomy was cultivated with great diligence 

 and talent in Italy by Achillini, Carpa, and Messa> 

 and in France by Sylvius and Stephanus (Dubois 

 and Etienne). Yet still these empty assumptions 

 repecting the heart and blood-vessels kept their 

 ground. Vesalius, a native of Brussels, has been 

 termed the founder of human anatomy, and his 

 great work De Humani Corporis Falricd is, even 

 yet, a splendid monument of art, as well as science. 

 It is said that his figures were designed by Titian; 

 and if this be not exactly true, says Cuvier 7 , they 



6 Encyc. Brit. 692, Anatomy. 



7 Legons sur I' Hist, dcs Sc. Nat. p. 21. 



FF2 



