230 LECTURE V. 



at the end furthest from the heart. He was 

 convinced that the conjoined areas of all the 

 minute arteries must greatly exceed that of 

 the aorta, where it emerges from the heart, 

 and therefore that every portion of blood 

 projected by the heart was moving into an 

 increasing space. 



Mr. Hunter, who believed that, in living 

 beings nothing was constructed or done in 

 vain, could never have observed the very- 

 curious contortions of some arteries, which 

 he has taken much pains to display in his 

 Museum, nor those of the great vessels as 

 they enter the skull, without supposing that 

 some purpose was effected by them. Nei- 

 ther could he contemplate the coalition of 

 currents of blood moving in contrary di- 

 rections, which is produced by the arteries 

 communicating and conjoining with one 

 another, without admitting that it must 

 tend to retard the velocity of the motion 

 of such opposing currents. Mr. Hunter 

 therefore joined in the physiological belief, 

 that all the circumstances we observe in 

 the distribution and ramification of arte-- 



