Nor is the heart, as some imagine, anything like a chauffer or fire, or heated kettle, and so the source of the heat of the blood; the blood, instead of receiving, rather gives heat to the heart, as it does to all the other parts of the body; for the blood is the hottest element in the body; and it is on this account that the heart is furnished with coronary arteries and veins; it is for the same reason that other parts have vessels, viz. to secure the access of warmth for their due conservation and stimulation; so that the warmer any part is, the greater is its supply of blood, or otherwise; where the blood is in largest quantity, there also is the heat highest. For this reason is the heart, remarkable through its cavities, to be viewed as the elaboratory, fountain, and perennial focus of heat, and as comparable to a hot kettle, not because of its proper substance, but because of its contained blood; for the same reason, because they have numerous veins or vessels containing blood, are the liver, spleen, lungs, &c., reputed hot parts. And in this way do I view the native or innate heat as the common instrument of every function, the prime cause of the pulse among the rest. This, however, I do not mean to state absolutely, but only propose it by way of thesis. Whatever may be objected to it by good and learned men, without abusive or contemptuous language, I shall be ready to listen to--I shall even be most grateful to any one who will take up and discuss the subject. These, then, are, as it were, the very elements and indications of the passage and circulation of the blood, viz. from the right auricle into the right ventricle; from the right ventricle by the way of the lungs into the left auricle; thence into the left ventricle and aorta; whence by the arteries at large through the pores or interstices of the tissues into the veins, and by the veins back again with great rapidity to the base of the heart.