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
Looking back upon this office of the arteries, or the circulation of the
blood, I have occasionally and against all expectation completely cured
enormous sarcoceles, by the simple means of dividing or tying the little
artery that supplied them, and so preventing all access of nourishment
or spirit to the part affected; by which it came to pass that the
tumour, on the verge of mortification, was afterwards easily extirpated
with the knife, or the searing iron. One man in particular (and this
case I can confirm by the testimony of many respectable persons) had an
enormous hernia carnosa, or sarcocosis of the scrotum, larger than a
human head, and hanging as low as the knee; from its upper part a fleshy
mass, of the thickness of the wrist, or such a rope as is used on
ship-board, extended into the abdomen; and the evil had attained to such
a height, that no one durst attempt the cure, either with the knife or
any other means. Nevertheless, by the procedure above indicated, I
succeeded in completely removing this huge excrescence which distended
the scrotum, and involved the testicle in its middle; this latter organ,
with its vas præparans and vas deferens, and other parts which descend
in the tunica vaginalis, being left all the while safe and uninjured.
But this cure, as well as various others, accomplished in opposition to
vulgar opinion and by unusual procedures, I shall relate at greater
length in my Medical Observations, if God grant me longer life.
I mention such cases with a view of more clearly showing that the liver
grows upon the vessels, and is only developed some time after the
appearance of the blood; that its parenchyma is derived from the
arteries whence the matter is effused, and that for a while it remains
white and bloodless, like various other parts of the body. Now in the
same manner and order precisely as the chick is developed from the egg,
is the generation of man and other animals accomplished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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