"Finding but little satisfaction in what had been attempted on
this subject by Borellus and others, I endeavoured, about
twenty-five years since, by proper experiments, to find what was
the real force of the blood in the crural arteries of dogs, and
about six years afterwards I repeated the like experiments on
two horses, and a fallow doe; but did not then pursue the matter
any further, being discouraged by the disagreeableness of
anatomical dissections. But having of late years found by
experience the advantage of making use of the statical way of
investigation, not only in our researches into the nature of
vegetables, but also in the chymical analysis of the air, I was
induced to hope for some success, if the same method of enquiry
were applied to animal bodies....
"Having laid open the left crural artery (of a mare), I inserted
into it a brass pipe whose bore was 1/6 of an inch in diameter;
and to that, by means of another brass pipe which was fitly
adapted to it, I fixed a glass tube of nearly the same diameter,
which was 9 feet in length; then, untying the ligature on the
artery, the blood rose in the tube 8 feet 3 inches perpendicular
above the level of the left ventricle of the heart, but it did
not attain to its full height at once: it rushed up gradually
at each pulse 12, 8, 6, 4, 2, and sometimes 1 inch. When it was
at its full height, it would rise and fall at and after each
pulse 2, 3, or 4 inches, and sometimes it would fall 12 or 14
inches, and have there for a time the same vibrations up and
down, at and after each pulse, as it had when it was at its full
height, to which it would rise again, after forty or fifty
pulses."
3. _The Collateral Circulation_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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