190 ERRORS ATTRIBUTED TO ARISTOTLE. 



wards from the heart towards the lung and the attachment of the 

 aorta, the vein being large and undivided. It divides into two 

 parts, the one to the lung, the other to the spine and the lowest 

 vertebra of the neck. 



(Q) "The vein which extends to the lung first divides into two 

 parts for the two halves of it and then extends alongside each tube 

 (cbpiyya) and each passage (rp^/m), the larger beside the larger and 

 the smaller beside the smaller, so that no part [of the lung] can be 

 found from which a passage (rpijua) and a vein are absent. The 

 terminations are invisible on account of their minuteness, but the 

 whole lung appears full of blood. The canals from the vein lie 

 above the tubes given off from the windpipe." 



The key to the whole of the foregoing description of 

 the heart lies in the passages (G) and (Z). They prove 

 that Aristotle, like Galen, five hundred years afterwards, 

 and like the great majority of the old Greek anato- 

 mists, did not reckon what we call the right auricle as 

 a constituent of the heart at all, but as a hollow part, 

 or dilatation, of the "great vein." Aristotle is careful 

 to state that his observations were conducted on suffo- 

 cated animals ; and if any one will lay open the thorax 

 of a dog or a rabbit, which has been killed with chlo- 

 roform, in such a manner as to avoid wounding any 

 important vessel, he will at once see why Aristotle 

 adopted this view. 



For, as the subjoined figure (p. 191) shows, the vena 

 cava inferior (5), the right auricle (JR.a.), and the vena 

 cava superior and innominate vein ( V.L) distended with 

 blood seem to form one continuous column, to which 

 the heart is attached as a sort of appendage. This 

 column is, as Aristotle says, vein above (a) and vein 

 below (5), the upper and the lower divisions being con- 



