188 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 



first and the third books of the " Historia " which I 

 proceed to lay before the reader. 



For convenience of reference these passages are 

 marked A, B, C, etc.* 



Book i. 17. (A) "The heart has three cavities, it lies above the 

 lung on the division of the windpipe, and has a fatty and thick 

 membrane where it is united with the great vein and the aorta. It 

 lies upon the aorta, with its point down the chest, in all animals 

 that have a chest. In all, alike in those that have a chest and in 

 those that have none, the foremost part of it is the apex. This is 

 often overlooked through the turning upside down of the dissection. 

 The rounded end of the heart is uppermost, the pointed end of it is 

 largely fleshy and thick, and in its cavities there are tendons. In 

 other animals which have a chest the heart lies in the middle of the 

 chest ; in men, more to the left side, between the nipples, a little in- 

 clined to the left nipple in the upper part of the chest. The heart 

 is not large, and its general form is not elongated but rounded, ex- 

 cept that the apex is produced into a point. 



(B) " It has, as already stated, three cavities, the largest of them 

 is on the right, the smallest on the left, the middle-sized one in the 

 middle; they have all, also the two small ones, passages (rer/^/zevaf) 

 towards the lung, very evidently as respects one of the cavities. 

 In the region of the union [with the great vein and the aorta] the 

 largest cavity is connected with the largest vein (near which is 

 the mesentery) ; the middle cavity with the aorta. 



(0} a Canals (rrdpoi) from the heart pass to the lung and divide 

 in the same fashion as the windpipe does, closely accompanying 

 those from the windpipe through the whole lung. The canals from 

 the heart are uppermost. 



(D) " No canal is common [to the branches of the windpipe and 

 those of the vein] (ovdelc 6' earl KOIVOC 7r<5pof) but through those parts 



* The text I hare followed is that given by Aubert and Wimmer, 

 " Aristoteles Thicrkunde : kritisch berichtigter Text mit deutschen Ueber- 

 sctzung ; " but I have tried here and there to bring the English version 

 rather closer to the original than the German translation, excellent as it is, 

 seems to me to be. 



