rapidity, how is it possible that air should penetrate
to the deeper parts as freely and quickly through the
skin, flesh, and other structures, as through the
cuticle alone? And how should the arteries of
the foetus draw air into their cavities through the
abdomen of the mother and the body of the womb?
And how should seals, whales, dolphins, and other
cetaceans, and fishes of every description, living
in the depths of the sea, take in and emit air by
the diastole and systole of their arteries through
the infinite mass of water? For to say that they
absorb the air that is present in the water, and emit
their fumes into this medium, were to utter something
like a figment. And if the arteries in their
systole expel fuliginous vapours from their cavities
through the pores of the flesh and skin, why not the
spirits, which are said to be contained in those vessels,
at the same time, since spirits are much more subtile
than fuliginous vapours or smoke? And if the arteries
take in and cast out air in the systole and diastole,
like the lungs in the process of respiration, why
do they not do the same thing when a wound is made
in one of them, as in the operation of arteriotomy?
When the windpipe is divided, it is sufficiently obvious
that the air enters and returns through the wound by
two opposite movements; but when an artery is divided,
it is equally manifest that blood escapes in one continuous
stream, and that no air either enters or issues.
If the pulsations of the arteries fan and refrigerate
the several parts of the body as the lungs do the
heart, how comes it, as is commonly said, that the
arteries carry the vital blood into the different
parts, abundantly charged with vital spirits, which
cherish the heat of these parts, sustain them when
asleep, and recruit them when exhausted? How
should it happen that, if you tie the arteries, immediately
the parts not only become torpid, and frigid, and look
pale, but at length cease even to be nourished?
This, according to Galen, is because they are deprived
of the heat which flowed through all parts from the
heart, as its source; whence it would appear that
the arteries rather carry warmth to the parts than
serve for any fanning or refrigeration. Besides,
how can their diastole draw spirits from the heart
to warm the body and its parts, and means of cooling
them from without? Still further, although some
affirm that the lungs, arteries, and heart have all
the same offices, they yet maintain that the heart
is the workshop of the spirits, and that the arteries
contain and transmit them; denying, however, in opposition
to the opinion of Columbus, that the lungs can either
make or contain spirits. They then assert, with
Galen, against Erasistratus, that it is the blood,
not spirits, which is contained in the arteries.