XVI LIFE AND WORKS OF NICOLAUS STENO 



villi of the placenta and of the wall of the uterus, which he considered 

 to be what he termed the eminentix glandulosx. Steno himself enume* 

 rates his discoveries as follows: 1. Vas salivare exterius sive parotidum 

 vas. 2. Vasa buccarum. 3. Vasa sublingvalia minora. 4. Vasa palati. 

 5. Meatus anterior e naribus in palatum. 6. Vasa epiglottidis. 7. Vas na= 

 rium. 8. Vas narium ovibus peculiare. 9. Vix a palpebris in nares. 10. Vasa 

 palpebrarum seu lacrymalia. 11. Vasa rajx superficiem exteriorem lubri= 

 cantia. As regards two important, larger glands Steno has thus for 

 the first time acknowledged them to be glands; he has discovered 

 several excretory ducts and furthermore shown the existence of canals 

 along which the various secretions are conveyed to the great cavities 

 of the organism ; he has demonstrated that the secretion depends upon 

 the supply of blood and upon the nervous system; and further, in 

 the case of a number of small glands, he has shown the existence of 

 these glands and explained their significance, pointing out how the 

 fluid, which covers animal membranes, has not simply passed through 

 these membranes, but has been secreted by numerous small glands 

 of their own. 



In addition to the above-mentioned glands Steno in a fish, the ray, 



found the glands of the skin, which give to these animals their lubrici* 



ty. In the same specimen he also found the minute glands of the sto* 



mach and the intestine. It is also of interest to note — as appears from 



a MS. of the above-mentioned Holgerjacobxus — that at a dissection 



in 1673 Steno demonstrated those glands in the small intestine, which 



Peyer found in the same year, although he did not publish his dis* 



covery until four years later. 



The Heart By observing that the portion of the vena cava, which is nearest 



and the the heart, possessed independent contraction, which contraction, in 



Muscles, animals laid open by vivisection, continued long after the pulsation 



of the heart had ceased, Steno was led to a close investigation of the 



heart and its function. 



Even after Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, the 

 views concerning the importance of the heart to the organism were 

 very much at variance, and numerous explanations of its function 

 had, in reality, only this one thing in common that they were alike 

 fanciful and alike far from being consistent with the actual facts. Steno 

 was among the first, who reduced the existing chaos to clearness and 

 order. In a Letter, dated Leyden ult. April. 1663, which he wrote to 

 Thomas Bartholin, he told in few and simple words, that in his opi* 

 nion the heart was a muscle and nothing but a muscle, and he ex* 

 pressed the hope that he would soon be able to prove this statement: 

 Qvod substantiam cordis spectat: evidenter, utopinor, demonstratum dabo, 

 nihil in corde reperiri, qvod non reperiatur in musculo, nee in corde desi* 

 derari, qvod in musculo invenitur, si ilia respexeris, qvx ad musculi faciunt 



