CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 131 



but if the heart be chilled, or smitten with any serious 

 disease, it seems matter of necessity that the whole ani- 

 mal fabric should suffer and fall into decay. When the 

 source is corrupted, there is nothing, as Aristotle says, 8 

 which can be of service either to it or aught that depends 

 on it. And hence, by the way, it may perchance be why 

 grief, and love, and envy, and anxiety, and all affections 

 of the mind of a similar kind are accompanied with emaci- 

 ation and decay, or with disordered fluids and crudity, 

 which engender all manner of diseases and consume the 

 body of man. For every affection of the mind that is 

 attended with either pain or pleasure, hope or fear, is 

 the cause of an agitation whose influence extends to the 

 heart, and there induces change from the natural con- 

 stitution, in the temperature, the pulse and the rest, which 

 impairing all nutrition in its source and abating the powers 

 at large, it is no wonder that various forms of incurable 

 disease in the extremities and in the trunk are the con- 

 sequence, inasmuch as in such circumstances the whole 

 body labours under the effects of vitiated nutrition and 

 a want of native heat 



Moreover, when we see that all animals live through 

 food digested in their interior, it is imperative that the 

 digestion and distribution be perfect, and, as a consequence, 

 that there be a place and receptacle where the aliment is 

 perfected and whence it is distributed to the several mem- 

 bers. Now this place is the heart, for it is the only organ 

 in the body which contains blood for the general use; all 

 the others receive it merely for their peculiar or private 

 advantage, just as the heart also has a supply for its own 

 especial behoof in its coronary veins and arteries. But 

 it is of the store which the heart contains in its auri- 

 cles and ventricles that I here speak. Then the heart 

 is the only organ which is so situated and constituted that 

 it can distribute the blood in due proportion to the several 

 parts of the body, the quantity sent to each being according 

 to the dimensions of the artery which supplies it, the heart 

 serving as a magazine or fountain ready to meet its de- 

 mands. 



Dt Part. Animal., HI. 



