604 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 10. 



been said, separated from the heart. There are two ways to show these veins 

 without dissection : the first is to fill them with wax, by syringing it into them 

 by their orifices in the auricles; for if we inject by the oblong orifice in the 

 right auricle, all the veins of the body (except those of the lungs) will be 

 entirely filled; and afterward by injecting into the oval orifice in the left 

 auricle, the two veins of the lungs will be full at once, through the whole 

 extent of the trachea in the lungs. The other way is to wait till the animal has 

 expired ; because the heart losing its vigour insensibly, (it beating for the space 

 of 24 hours,) it has not then the force to discharge itself of the blood which 

 comes from all parts into these veins, which then grow very turgid by the co 

 agulated blood collected in them; then you need only to turn over the heart to- 

 wards the neck, and cut the small coronary vein which comes out of the substance 

 of the heart, to observe all the great veins without dissection ; because they all 

 come and terminate in a common reservatory, situated across in the capacity of 

 the pericardium, joining to the auricles. And here we may observe a great 

 vein, or an irregular reservatory; in the tortoises I have dissected, of 18 and 

 20 inches long, this reservatory was 10 inches broad, and 18 inches long ; and 

 in it the two axillary veins from the upper parts of the body, join together, 

 after having pierced the pericardium, one on the right side, and the other on 

 the left. From the inferior parts there join two large veins, one on the right 

 side, and the other on the left of the inferior part of this reservatory ; the first 

 made up of all the branches which come from the right iobe of the liver 

 which is very large; and the other consists not only of the veins of the left 

 lobe of the liver, but also of a vein which supplies the place of the vena cava 

 and which I call the vena intestinalis; because after it has received all the veins 

 of the inferior parts of the animal, it runs all along the intestines, from which 

 it receives the veins ; and being arrived at the pylorus, it passes across the left 

 lobe of the liver, and terminates in the common reservatory. 



Besides these four large veins, there are three, but sometimes only two, 

 coming from the middle part of the liver, which are inserted into the bottom 

 of the reservatory ; as also the small coronary vein from the heart. All these 

 veins being thus re-united in one common place, this reservatory terminates 

 upwards in a conduit, inserted into the posterior part of the right auricle, and 

 opens into its cavity by an oblong orifice, furnished with two long semilunar 

 valves, which permit the blood of the reservatory to enter into the auricles, 

 but hinder its returning from the auricles into the reservatory. A little above 

 the reservatory, under the left auricle, are seen the two pulmonary veins: the 

 left, after having entered the pericardium, is hidden under the axillary vein, and 

 does not separate itself from it till a little above the auricles ; from thence it bends 



