Of
these there be two chief, _Vena porta_ and _Vena cava_, from which the
rest are corrivated. That _Vena porta_ is a vein coming from the
concave of the liver, and receiving those mesaraical veins, by whom he
takes the chylus from the stomach and guts, and conveys it to the
liver. The other derives blood from the liver to nourish all the other
dispersed members. The branches of that _Vena porta_ are the mesaraical
and haemorrhoids. The branches of the _cava_ are inward or outward.
Inward, seminal or emulgent. Outward, in the head, arms, feet, &c., and
have several names.
_Fibrae, Fat, Flesh_.] Fibrae are strings, white and solid, dispersed
through the whole member, and right, oblique, transverse, all which
have their several uses. Fat is a similar part, moist, without blood,
composed of the most thick and unctuous matter of the blood. The
[959]skin covers the rest, and hath cuticulum, or a little skin tinder
it. Flesh is soft and ruddy, composed of the congealing of blood, &c.
SUBSECT. IV.—_Dissimilar Parts_.
Dissimilar parts are those which we call organical, or instrumental,
and they be inward or outward. The chiefest outward parts are situate
forward or backward:—forward, the crown and foretop of the head, skull,
face, forehead, temples, chin, eyes, ears, nose, &c., neck, breast,
chest, upper and lower part of the belly, hypocondries, navel, groin,
flank, &c.; backward, the hinder part of the head, back, shoulders,
sides, loins, hipbones, os sacrum, buttocks, &c. Or joints, arms,
hands, feet, legs, thighs, knees, &c. Or common to both, which, because
they are obvious and well known, I have carelessly repeated, eaque
praecipua et grandiora tantum; quod reliquum ex libris de anima qui
volet, accipiat.
Inward organical parts, which cannot be seen, are divers in number, and
have several names, functions, and divisions; but that of
[960]Laurentius is most notable, into noble or ignoble parts. Of the
noble there be three principal parts, to which all the rest belong, and
whom they serve—brain, heart, liver; according to whose site, three
regions, or a threefold division, is made of the whole body. As first
of the head, in which the animal organs are contained, and brain
itself, which by his nerves give sense and motion to the rest, and is,
as it were, a privy counsellor and chancellor to the heart. The second
region is the chest, or middle belly, in which the heart as king keeps
his court, and by his arteries communicates life to the whole body. The
third region is the lower belly, in which the liver resides as a Legat
a latere, with the rest of those natural organs, serving for
concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements. This lower region is
distinguished from the upper by the midriff, or diaphragma, and is
subdivided again by [961]some into three concavities or regions, upper,
middle, and lower. The upper of the hypocondries, in whose right side
is the liver, the left the spleen; from which is denominated
hypochondriacal melancholy.
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