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blood would not pass to the lungs for their nourishment only. The 

 lungs of the fetus are otherwise nourished. The mixture of blood 

 and air takes place in the lungs, not in the heart, and it is in 

 the lungs that the florid colour of the spirituous blood is acquired. 

 R Willis, the biographer of Servetus and Vesalius, justly 

 remarks that — 



" Vesalius, the observer, abiding by the concrete, describes with rare fidelity and 

 truthfulness what he witnessed : Servetus, gifted with genius, aspiring to the ideal, and 

 inferring consequences, deduced the pulmonary circulation from the structure of the 

 heart and lungs." 



(Servetus and Calvin, by R. Willis, M.D., 1877, p. 106.) 



There is, however, no idea of a circulation in the sense in which 

 we now understand it. To Servetus the liver and the veins connected 

 with it were the great organ for the growth and nourishment of the 

 body. 



" The heart was the source of the heat of the body, and, with the concurrence of the 

 lungs, the elaboratory of the vital spirits ; the arterial system in connection with it 

 being the channel by which the spirit that gives life and special endowment to the 

 bodily organs is distributed." 



Servetus's book remained unknown in the Republic of Letters 

 until it was unearthed by Wotton in his Reflections on Antient and 

 Modern Learning, in 1694, a century and a half after the death of its 

 author. 



The rest of the story is soon told. Calvin denounced Servetus to 

 the ecclesiastical authorities of Lyons and Vienne. He was arrested, 

 but probably was allowed to escape from Vienne, only to fall into the 

 hands of his implacable antagonist in Geneva. It is not necessary to 

 dwell on the so-called trial. Every one knows how at the bidding of 

 Calvin, on October 27th, 1553, Servetus was burned at the stake 

 because he would not retract his religious opinions. With him was 

 burned nearly the whole edition — one thousand copies — of his 

 Restitutio — in fact, all save a few copies. He is reported to have 

 said : " Will not the flames make an end of my misery ? Is it not 

 possible for them to burn me quickly by buying wood enough with 

 the hundred golden pieces and the costly chain they took from me ? " 



REALDUS COLUMBUS— or Colombo— a native of Cremona, 

 born 1516, died at Rome 1557, was for a short time the deputy 

 of Vesalius at Padua, and for two years his immediate successor. 

 In his De Re Anatomica Libri XV., published at Venice in 1559, after 

 his death, there is an account of the course of the blood through the 

 lungs, or the pulmonary circulation. To Columbus the liver is still 

 the fons, origo, et radix — the head, fount, and origin — of all the 

 veins ; the heart is not a muscle. There is something unsatisfactory 



