An anatomical disquisition on the motion of the heart & blood in animalsHarvey, William
Science
An anatomical disquisition on the motion of the heart & blood in animals
Harvey, William
Blood -- Circulation
The body was muscular, the chest hairy, and the hair on the fore-arms
still black; the legs, however, were without hair, and smooth.
The organs of generation were healthy, the penis neither retracted nor
extenuated, nor the scrotum filled with any serous infiltration, as
happens so commonly among the decrepid; the testes, too, were sound
and large; so that it seemed not improbable that the common report
was true, viz. that he did public penance under a conviction for
incontinence, after he had passed his hundredth year; and his wife,
whom he had married as a widow in his hundred-and-twentieth year, did
not deny that he had intercourse with her after the manner of other
husbands with their wives, nor until about twelve years back had he
ceased to embrace her frequently.
The chest was broad and ample; the lungs, nowise fungous, adhered,
especially on the right side, by fibrous bands to the ribs. They were
much loaded with blood, as we find them in cases of peripneumony, so
that until the blood was squeezed out they looked rather blackish.
Shortly before his death I had observed that the face was livid, and he
suffered from difficult breathing and orthopnœa. This was the reason
why the axillæ and chest continued to retain their heat long after his
death: this and other signs that present themselves in cases of death
from suffocation were observed in the body.
We judged, indeed, that he had died suffocated, through inability to
breathe, and this view was confirmed by all the physicians present, and
reported to the King. When the blood was expressed, and the lungs were
wiped, their substance was beheld of a white and almost milky hue.
The heart was large, and thick, and fibrous, and contained a
considerable quantity of adhering fat, both in its circumference and
over its septum. The blood in the heart, of a black colour, was dilute,
and scarcely coagulated; in the right ventricle alone some small clots
were discovered.
In raising the sternum, the cartilages of the ribs were not found
harder or converted into bone in any greater degree than they are in
ordinary men; on the contrary, they were soft and flexible.
The intestines were perfectly sound, fleshy, and strong, and so was
the stomach: the small intestines presented several constrictions,
like rings, and were muscular. Whence it came that, by day or night,
observing no rules or regular times for eating, he was ready to
discuss any kind of eatable that was at hand; his ordinary diet
consisting of sub-rancid cheese, and milk in every form, coarse and
hard bread, and small drink, generally sour whey. On this sorry fare,
but living in his home, free from care, did this poor man attain to
such length of days. He even ate something about midnight shortly
before his death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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