BEFORE HARVEY 



5 



passage of blood through the lungs, but not the 

 general circulation. He says : — 



" The blood is carried through the pulmonary 

 artery to the lung, and there is attenuated ; thence, 

 mixed with air, it is carried through the pulmonary 

 vein to the left ventricle of the heart : which thing 

 no man hitherto has noted or left on record, though 

 it is most worthy of the observation of all men. . . . 

 And this is as true as truth itself; for if you will 

 look, not only in the dead body but also in the 

 living animal, you will always find this pulmonary 

 vein full of blood, which assuredly it would not be 

 if it were designed only for air and vapours. . . . 

 Verily, I pray you, O candid reader, studious of 

 authority, but more studious of truth, to make 

 experiment on animals. You will find the 

 pulmonary vein full of blood, not air or fuligo, as 

 these men call it, God help them. Only there is 

 no pulsation in the vein." (De Re Anatomicd, 

 Venice, 1559.) 



Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Harvey's master 

 at Padua, published his work on the valves of 

 the veins — De Venarum Ostiolis — in 1603. He did 

 not discover them. Sylvius speaks of them in his 

 Isagoge (Venice, 1555), and they were known to 

 Amatus (1552), and even to Theodoretus, Bishop 

 of Syria, who lived, as John Hunter said of Senner- 

 tus, "the Lord knows how long ago." But Fab- 

 ricius studied them most carefully ; and in anatomy 

 he left nothing more to be said about them. In 

 physiology, his work was of little value ; for he held 

 that they were designed " to retard the blood in 



