444 Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science 



vena porta to the vena cava, with reference to the blood, go 

 the transfusion from the arterial vein to the venous artery is 

 made in the lungs, with reference to the spirit. If any pne 

 compares this v^ith that which Galen writes, Lib. 6. et. 7. on 

 the use of the parts, he easily perceives the truth, not ob- 

 served by Galen himself. And so the vital spirit from the left 

 ventricle of the heart is thus poured out into the arteries of 

 the whole body." 



Christianismi Restitutio is at present a very rare book. 

 (Jf the 100 copies that were printed only three are known to 

 exist at present. All of the rest are supposed to have been 

 destroyed by fire with their author. There is some question 

 as to the influence of this book upon the scientific world. It 

 is strange that the great advance in the knowledge of the cir- 

 culation of the blood should occur almost at the same time at 

 Padua in the works of ' Vesalius and Columbus, yesalius 

 brought out his first work in ir)43 in which he agrees with 

 Galen that the blood passes through the septum but in the 

 reviserf' edition brought out in 1555 he doubts the prpposition 

 and almost states that it does not so pass. Servetus' work 

 was in manuscript form in 15-16 and it is known that several 

 copies were sent to dififerent parties and it would be prefectly 

 natural that the great school of medicine at Padua would be 

 the first to be influenced by this work although it was brought 

 out'^especially as a theological work. ' There is nothing to be 

 found in Servetus' work to indicate that he had the least idea 

 of the systemic circulation and he evidently did not under- 

 stand the passage of the blood through the tissue of the kmgs 

 for the capillaries were not discovered for more than a hun- 

 dred years after. As has been stated above and in the quo- 

 tation, it is evident that he knew^ that the blood passed through 

 the lungs in passing from one side of the heart to the other 

 but as to how it passed was entirely unknown to him. 



In 1559 Matheus Realdus Columbus, six years after the 

 death of Servetus, re-described the circulation and agrees- in 

 every respect with Servetus but says that it had never been 



