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
Hypenemic or unfruitful eggs, begin to change at this time, as the
critical day when they must show their disposition. As fertile eggs are
changed by the inherent plastic force into colliquament (which
afterwards passes into blood), so do wind-eggs now begin to change and
to putrefy. I have, nevertheless, occasionally observed the spot or
cicatricula to expand considerably even in hypenemic eggs, but never to
rise into a cumulus, nor to become circumscribed by regularly disposed
concentric circles. Sometimes I have even observed the vitellus to get
somewhat clearer, and to become liquefied; but this was unequally; there
were flocks, as if formed by sudden coagulation, swimming dispersed
through it like clouds. And although such eggs could not yet be called
putrid, nor were they offensive, still were they disposed to
putrefaction; and, if continued under the hen, they soon arrived at this
state, the rottenness commencing at the very spot where in fruitful eggs
the reproductive germ appears.
The more perfect or forward eggs then, about the end of the fourth day,
contain a double or bipartite pulsating vesicle, each portion
reciprocating the other’s motion, in such order and manner that whilst
one is contracting, the other is distended with blood and ruddy in
colour; but this last contracting anon forces out its charge of blood,
and, an instant being interposed, the former rises again and repeats its
pulse. And it is easy to perceive that the action of these vesicles is
contraction, by which the blood is moved and propelled into the vessels.
“On the fourth day,” says Aldrovandus,[181] “two puncta are perceived,
both of which are in motion; these, undoubtedly, are the heart and the
liver, viscera which Aristotle allowed to eggs incubated for three
days.”
The Philosopher,[182] however, nowhere says anything of the kind;
neither, for the most part, are the viscera mentioned conspicuous before
the tenth day. And I am indeed surprised that Aldrovandus should have
taken one of these pulsating points for the liver, as if this viscus
were ever moved in any such manner! It seems much better to believe that
with the growth of the embryo one of the pulsating points is changed
into the auricles, the other into the ventricles of the heart. For in
the adult, the ventricles are filled in the same manner by the auricles,
and by their contraction they are straightway emptied again, as we have
shown in our treatise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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