The Works of William Harvey M.D.: Translated from the Latin with a life of the authorHarvey, William
Science
The Works of William Harvey M.D.: Translated from the Latin with a life of the author
Harvey, William
Blood -- Circulation -- Early works to 1800; Embryology -- Early works to 1800; Physiology -- Early works to 1800
Fabricius depicts this palpitating point in his third figure; and
mistakes it--a thing which is extraordinary--for the body of the embryo;
as if he had never seen it leaping or pulsating, or had not understood,
or had entirely forgotten the passage in Aristotle. A still greater
subject of amazement, however, is his total want of solicitude about his
chalazæ all this while, although he had declared the rudiments of the
embryo to be derived from them.
Ulyssus Aldrovandus,[177] writing from Bologna nearly at the same time,
says: “There appears in the albumen, as it were, a minute palpitating
point, which The Philosopher declares to be the heart. And I have
unquestionably seen a venous trunk arising from this, from which two
other branches proceeded; these are the blood-vessels, which he says
extend to either investing membrane of the yelk and white. And I am
myself entirely of his opinion, and believe these to be veins, and
pulsatile, and to contain a purer kind of blood, adapted to the
production of the principal parts of the body, the liver, to wit, the
lungs, and others of the same description.” Both of the vessels in
question, however, are not veins, neither do they both pulsate; but one
of them is an artery, another a vein, as we shall see by and by, when we
shall farther show that these passages constitute the umbilical vessels
of the embryo.
Volcher Coiter has these words: “The sanguineous point or globule, which
was formerly found in the yelk, is now observed more in the albumen, and
pulsates distinctly.” He says, erroneously, “formerly found in the
yelk;” for the point discovered in the vitellus is white, and does not
pulsate; nor does the sanguineous point or globe appear to pulsate at
the end of the second day of incubation. But the point which we have
indicated in the middle of the circle, and as constituting its centre in
connexion with the vitellus, disappears before that point which is
characterized by Aristotle as palpitating, can be discerned; or, as I
conceive, having turned red, begins to pulsate. For both points are
situated in the centre of the resolved fluid, and near the root of the
veins which thence arise; but they are never seen simultaneously: in the
place of the white point there appears a red and palpitating point.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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