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press must be a scholar and a man of letters, well grounded both in 

 Latin and Greek. He edited many costly works, including an edition 

 of the Geography of Ptolemy, 1535. After a stay of about two 

 years in Lyons his thoughts were directed to medicine, and he 

 returned to Paris and studied, as already stated, under Sylvius, 

 Guinterius, and Fernelius. In Paris he wrote a work on Syrups, 

 lectured on geography and astrology, and practised medicine for a 

 short time. He left Paris and practised medicine under the name of 

 M. Villeneuve at Vienne, near Lyons, in Dauphiny, for twelve years. 



It is plain, however, that his mind dwelt more on matters 

 theological than medical. During this period he wrote the famous 

 work Christianismi Restitutio or The Restitution of Christianity. A 

 copy in MS. was sent to Calvin and also to Curio. It was in 

 MS. in 1546. It does not appear that the work was freely 

 circulated ; indeed, Calvin had difficulties in obtaining the copies 

 required for the prosecution of Servetus. 



In the fifth book, which treats of the Holy Spirit, he intro- 

 duces the following passage (quoted as translated by R. Willis), which 

 shows, without doubt, that he, Servetus, rejected absolutely the idea 

 of the passage of blood from the right to the left side of the heart 

 through the septum. He had grasped the true features of the 

 pulmonary circuit. After speaking of the natural, vital, and animal 

 spirits of the heart as the first organ that lives, and as the source 

 of the heat of the body, of the liver sending to the heart the 

 liquor, the material, as it were, of life, he shows how this material 

 is elaborated by a most admirable process, thus it comes to pass 

 that the life itself is in the blood yea, that the blood is the life, as 

 God himself declares (Genesis ix., Leviticus xvii., Deuteronomy xii.). 



"The first thing to be considered is the substantial generation of the vital 

 spirit a compound of the inspired air with the most subtle portion of the blood. 

 The vital spirit has, therefore, its source in the left ventricle of the heart, the lung 

 aiding most essentially in its production. It is a fine attenuated spirit, elaborated 

 by the power of heat, of a crimson colour and fiery potency the lucid vapour, as it 

 were of the blood .... engendered by the mingling of the inspired air with the 

 more subtle portion of the blood which the right ventricle of the heart communicates to 

 the left. This communication, however, does not take place through the septum, 

 partition, or midwall of the heart, as commonly believed, but by another admirable 

 contrivance, the blood being transmitted through the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary 

 vein, 'et a vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam transfunditur,' by a lengthened passage 

 through the lungs, in the course of which it is elaborated and becomes of a crimson 

 colour. Mingled with the inspired air in this passage, and freed from fuliginous 

 vapours by the act of expiration, the mixture being now complete in every respect, 

 and the blood become a fit dwelling place for the vital spirit, it is finally attracted by 

 the diastole, and reaches the left ventricle of the heart." 



He remarks on the great size of the pulmonary artery, its 

 various conjunctions in the lungs with the pulmonary vein within 

 the substance of the lung, as showing that so large a stream of 



