A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason: and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences — John Shaqi
A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason: and the Discovery of Truth in the SciencesDescartes, René
PhilosophyPhilosophy
A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason: and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences
Descartes, René
Methodology; Science -- Methodology
But if it be asked, how it comes that the bloud of the veins is not
exhausted, running so continually into the heart; and how that the
arteries are not too full, since all that which passeth thorow the heart
dischargeth it self into them: I need answer nothing thereto but what
hath been already writ by an English Physician, to whom this praise must
be given, to have broken the ice in this place, and to be the first who
taught us, That there are several little passages in the extremity of
the arteries whereby the bloud which they receive from the heart,
enters the little branches of the veins; whence again it sends it self
back towards the heart: so that its course is no other thing but a
perpetuall circulation. Which he very wel proves by the ordinary
experience of Chirurgians, who having bound the arm indifferently hard
above the the place where they open the vein, which causeth the bloud to
issue more abundantly, then if it had not been bound. And the contrary
would happen, were it bound underneath, between the hand and the
incision, or bound very hard above. For its manifest, that the band
indifferently tyed, being able to hinder the bloud which is already in
the arm to return towards the heart by the veins; yet it therefore
hinders not the new from coming always by the arteries, by reason they
are placed under the veins, and that their skin being thicker, are less
easie to be press'd, as also that the bloud which comes from the heart,
seeks more forcibly to passe by them towards the hand, then it doth to
return from thence towards the heart by the veins. And since this bloud
which issues from the arm by the incision made in one of the veins, must
necessarily have some passage under the bond, to wit, towards the
extremities of the arm, whereby it may come thither by the arteries, he
also proves very well what he sayes of the course of the bloud through
certain little skins, which are so disposed in divers places along the
veins, which permit it not to pass from the middle towards the
extremities, but onely to return from the extremities towards the heart.
And besides this, experience shews, That all the bloud which is in the
body may in a very little time run out by one onely artery's being cut,
although it were even bound very neer the heart, and cut betwixt it and
the ligature: So that we could have no reason to imagine that the bloud
which issued thence could come from any other part.
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