VOL. v.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 433 



that it proceeds from the fluor of the salt, and that that salt is on^ of the ele- 

 ments of natural things ; which latter he attempts to make out by experiments 

 against the objections of his adversary. 



To this vindication are annexed two exercitations, whereof the first is em- 

 ployed in proving the accension of the blood : the author undertakes to show 

 that the blood being animate, that animation or life depends on its being 

 kindled, since the proper affections of fire and flame belong to the life of the 

 blood ; which is here deduced at large ; although it be withal acknowledged 

 that this vital flame does not, as the common flame, appear to view, in regard 

 that its form is subordinate to another superior form, viz. the soul of the 

 animal. 



The second discourse treats of muscular motion, where having declared, 

 that Dr. Steno has been the first that has delivered rightly the structure of the 

 muscles, and that the figures described by him are visible in them ; and also 

 made out the motions of their fibres by divers anatomical experiments ; besides 

 many other considerable particulars - he asserts that the motion of muscles de- 

 pends upon a constant influx both of the blood and the animal spirits ; and that 

 the latter alone, without being associated with the former, cannot perform that 

 moving function ; maintaining, that as the spirits (or springy particles) in the 

 contraction of a muscle rush out of the tendons into the fleshy parts of it, and 

 in the relaxation, skip back from these into those, so those spirits lying quiet 

 within the tendons, do swell the fleshy fibres by conflicting and struggling with 

 the particles of the blood. To which he adds the manner how the instinct of 

 performing or stopping the muscular motion is imprinted by the nerves in the 

 muscles : also divers important particulars concerning two sorts of spasms or 

 convulsions proceeding from the muscles, with an illustration of the same by a 

 very remarkable case. He concludes with solving the objections to which his 

 doctrine of the muscles may be liable, and annexing some figures, representing 

 some of the muscles, together with an explanation of the same. 



Ex I r act of a Letter from Mons de M artel, of Montaiihan, concerning 

 a Way for the Prolongation of Human Life, together with some Ob- 

 servations made in the Southern Parts of France. Translated by Mr. 

 Oldenburg. iV" 58, p. 1179. 



There is nothing in this paper on the subject of longevity which is worthy of 

 being noticed. As to the observations made in the south of France, one of 

 them relates to the manner of making muscadine wine from grapes suffered to 

 remain upon the vines after they are ripe, until they are half dried ; the 



VOL. I. .3 1 * 



