Besides this, however, I have occasionally observed, after the heart and even its right auricle had ceased pulsating,—­when it was in articulo mortis in short,—­that an obscure motion, an undulation or palpitation, remained in the blood itself, which was contained in the right auricle, this being apparent so long as it was imbued with heat and spirit.  And, indeed, a circumstance of the same kind is extremely manifest in the course of the generation of animals, as may be seen in the course of the first seven days of the incubation of the chick:  A drop of blood makes its appearance which palpitates, as Aristotle had already observed; from this, when the growth is further advanced and the chick is fashioned, the auricles of the heart are formed, which pulsating henceforth give constant signs of life.  When at length, and after the lapse of a few days, the outline of the body begins to be distinguished, then is the ventricular part of the heart also produced, but it continues for a time white and apparently bloodless, like the rest of the animal; neither does it pulsate or give signs of motion.  I have seen a similar condition of the heart in the human foetus about the beginning of the third month, the heart then being whitish and bloodless, although its auricles contained a considerable quantity of purple blood.  In the same way in the egg, when the chick was formed and had increased in size, the heart too increased and acquired ventricles, which then began to receive and to transmit blood.

And this leads me to remark that he who inquires very particularly into this matter will not conclude that the heart, as a whole, is the primum vivens, ultimum moriens,—­the first part to live, the last to die,—­but rather its auricles, or the part which corresponds to the auricles in serpents, fishes, etc., which both lives before the heart and dies after it.

Nay, has not the blood itself or spirit an obscure palpitation inherent in it, which it has even appeared to me to retain after death? and it seems very questionable whether or not we are to say that life begins with the palpitation or beating of the heart.  The seminal fluid of all animals—­the prolific spirit, as Aristotle observed, leaves their body with a bound and like a living thing; and nature in death, as Aristotle [Footnote:  De Motu Animal., cap. 8.] further remarks, retracing her steps, reverts to where she had set out, and returns at the end of her course to the goal whence she had started.  As animal generation proceeds from that which is not animal, entity from nonentity, so, by a retrograde course, entity, by corruption, is resolved into nonentity, whence that in animals, which was last created, fails first and that which was first, fails last.

I have also observed that almost all animals have truly a heart, not the larger creatures only, and those that have red blood, but the smaller, and pale-blooded ones also, such as slugs, snails, scallops, shrimps, crabs, crayfish, and many others; nay, even in wasps, hornets, and flies, I have, with the aid of a magnifying glass, and at the upper part of what is called the tail, both seen the heart pulsating myself, and shown it to many others.