initial commit of ebook 2939HEADmain

2 files changed, 1027 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/thx1910.txt b/old/thx1910.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7257a23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/thx1910.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1027 @@
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Circulation of the Blood**
+#39 in our series by Thomas H. Huxley
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.
+
+Please do not remove this.
+
+This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book.
+Do not change or edit it without written permission.  The words
+are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they
+need about what they can legally do with the texts.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
+Texas, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota,
+Iowa, Indiana, and Vermont. As the requirements for other states
+are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will
+begin in the additional states. These donations should be made to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655
+
+
+Title:  The Circulation of the Blood
+
+Author:  Thomas H. Huxley
+
+Release Date:  November, 2001  [Etext #2939]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+
+Edition:  10
+
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Circulation of the Blood**
+*****This file should be named thx1910.txt or thx1910.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, thx1911.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, thx1910a.txt
+
+This etext was prepared by Amy E. Zelmer.
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
+of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after
+the official publication date.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement
+can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01
+or
+ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01
+
+Or /etext00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext
+files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding.
+
+Something is needed to create a future for Project Gutenberg for
+the next 100 years.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
+Texas, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota,
+Iowa, Indiana, and Vermont. As the requirements for other states
+are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will
+begin in the additional states.
+
+All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and will be tax deductible to the extent
+permitted by law.
+
+Mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Avenue
+Oxford, MS 38655  [USA]
+
+We are working with the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation to build more stable support and ensure the
+future of Project Gutenberg.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+You can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+
+Example command-line FTP session:
+
+ftp metalab.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext01, etc.
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain etexts, and royalty free copyright licenses.
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by Amy E. Zelmer.
+
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM HARVEY AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD
+
+by Thomas H. Huxley
+
+
+
+
+THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD*
+
+[*footnote]  A Lecture delivered in the Free Trade Hall, November 2nd,
+1878.
+
+I DESIRE this evening to give you some account of the life and labours
+of a very noble Englishman--William Harvey.
+
+William Harvey was born in the year 1578, and as he lived until the year
+1657, he very nearly attained the age of 80.  He was the son of a small
+landowner in Kent, who was sufficiently wealthy to send this, his
+eldest son, to the University of Cambridge; while he embarked the
+others in mercantile pursuits, in which they all, as time passed on,
+attained riches.
+
+William Harvey, after pursuing his education at Cambridge, and taking
+his degree there, thought it was advisable--and justly thought so, in
+the then state of University education--to proceed to Italy, which at
+that time was one of the great centres of intellectual activity in
+Europe, as all friends of freedom hope it will become again, sooner or
+later.  In those days the University of Padua had a great renown; and
+Harvey went there and studied under a man who was then very
+famous--Fabricius of Aquapendente.  On his return to England, Harvey
+became a member of the College of Physicians in London, and entered
+into practice; and, I suppose, as an indispensable step thereto,
+proceeded to marry.  He very soon became one of the most eminent
+members of the profession in London; and, about the year 1616, he was
+elected by the College of Physicians their Professor of Anatomy.  It
+was while Harvey held this office that he made public that great
+discovery of the circulation of the blood and the movements of the
+heart, the nature of which I shall endeavour by-and-by to explain to you
+at length.  Shortly afterwards, Charles the First having succeeded to
+the throne in 1625, Harvey became one of the king's physicians; and it
+is much to the credit of the unfortunate monarch--who, whatever his
+faults may have been, was one of the few English monarchs who have shown
+a taste for art and science--that Harvey became his attached and
+devoted friend as well as servant; and that the king, on the other
+hand, did all he could to advance Harvey's investigations.  But, as you
+know, evil times came on; and Harvey, after the fortunes of his royal
+master were broken, being then a man of somewhat advanced years--over
+60 years of age, in fact--retired to the society of his brothers in and
+near London, and among them pursued his studies until the day of his
+death.  Harvey's career is a life which offers no salient points of
+interest to the biographer.  It was a life devoted to study and
+investigation; and it was a life the devotion of which was amply
+rewarded, as I shall have occasion to point out to you, by its results.
+
+Harvey, by the diversity, the variety, and the thoroughness of his
+investigations, was enabled to give an entirely new direction to at
+least two branches--and two of the most important branches--of what
+now-a-days we call Biological Science.  On the one hand, he founded all
+our modern physiology by the discovery of the exact nature of the
+motions of the heart, and of the course in which the blood is propelled
+through the body; and, on the other, he laid the foundation of that
+study of development which has been so much advanced of late years, and
+which constitutes one of the great pillars of the doctrine of evolution.
+This doctrine, I need hardly tell you, is now tending to revolutionise
+our conceptions of the origin of living things, exactly in the same way
+as Harvey's discovery of the circulation in the seventeeth century
+revolutionised the conceptions which men had previously entertained with
+regard to physiological processes.
+
+It would, I regret, be quite impossible for me to attempt, in the course
+of the time I can presume to hold you here, to unfold the history of
+more than one of these great investigations of Harvey.  I call them
+"great investigations," as distinguished from "large publications."  I
+have in my hand a little book, which those of you who are at a great
+distance may have some difficulty in seeing, and which I value very
+much.  It is, I am afraid, sadly thumbed and scratched with annotations
+by a very humble successor and follower of Harvey.  This little book is
+the edition of 1651 of the 'Exercitationes de Generatione'; and if you
+were to add another little book, printed in the same small type, and
+about one-seventh of the thickness, you would have the sum total of the
+printed matter which Harvey contributed to our literature. And yet in
+that sum total was contained, I may say, the materials of two
+revolutions in as many of the main branches of biological science.  If
+Harvey's published labours can be condensed into so small a compass,
+you must recollect that it is not because he did not do a great deal
+more.  We know very well that he did accumulate a very considerable
+number of observations on the most varied topics of medicine, surgery,
+and natural history.  But, as I mentioned to you just now, Harvey, for
+a time, took the royal side in the domestic quarrel of the Great
+Rebellion, as it is called; and the Parliament, not unnaturally
+resenting that action of his, sent soldiers to seize his papers.  And
+while I imagine they found nothing treasonable among those papers, yet,
+in the process of rummaging through them, they destroyed all the
+materials which Harvey had spent a laborious life in accumulating; and
+hence it is that the man's work and labours are represented by so
+little in apparent bulk.
+
+What I chiefly propose to do to-night is to lay before you an account of
+the nature of the discovery which Harvey made, and which is termed the
+Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.  And I desire also, with
+some particularity, to draw your attention to the methods by which that
+discovery was achieved; for, in both these respects, I think, there will
+be much matter for profitable reflection.
+
+Let me point out to you, in the first place, with respect to this
+important matter of the movements of the heart and the course of the
+blood in the body, that there is a certain amount of knowledge which
+must have been obtained without men taking the trouble to seek
+it--knowledge which must have been taken in, in the course of time, by
+everybody who followed the trade of a butcher, and still more so by
+those people who, in ancient times, professed to divine the course of
+future events from the entrails of animals.  It is quite obvious to
+all, from ordinary accidents, that the bodies of all the higher animals
+contain a hot red fluid--the blood.  Everybody can see upon the surface
+of some part of the skin, underneath that skin, pulsating tubes, which
+we know as the arteries.  Everybody can see under the surface of the
+skin more delicate and softer looking tubes, which do not pulsate, which
+are of a bluish colour, and are termed the veins.  And every person who
+has seen a recently killed animal opened knows that these two kinds of
+tubes to which I have just referred, are connected with an apparatus
+which is placed in the chest, which apparatus, in recently killed
+animals, is still pulsating.  And you know that in yourselves you can
+feel the pulsation of this organ, the heart, between the fifth and
+sixth ribs.  I take it that this much of anatomy and physiology has
+been known from the oldest times, not only as a matter of curiosity,
+but because one of the great objects of men, from their earliest
+recorded existence, has been to kill one another, and it was a matter
+of considerable importance to know which was the best place for hitting
+an enemy.  I can refer you to very ancient records for most precise and
+clear information that one of the best places is to smite him between
+the fifth and sixth ribs.  Now that is a very good piece of regional
+anatomy, for that is the place where the heart strikes in its
+pulsations, and the use of smiting there is that you go straight to the
+heart.  Well, all that must have been known from time immemorial--at
+least for 4,000 or 5,000 years before the commencement of our
+era--because we know that for as great a period as that the Egyptians,
+at any rate, whatever may have been the case with other people, were in
+the enjoyment of a highly developed civilisation.  But of what
+knowledge they may have possessed beyond this we know nothing; and in
+tracing back the springs of the origin of everything that we call
+"modern science" (which is not merely knowing, but knowing
+systematically, and with the intention and endeavour to find out the
+causal connection of things)--I say that when we trace back the
+different lines of all the modern sciences we come at length to one
+epoch and to one country--the epoch being about the fourth and fifth
+centuries before Christ, and the country being ancient Greece.  It is
+there that we find the commencement and the root of every branch of
+physical science and of scientific method.  If we go back to that time
+we have in the works attributed to Aristotle, who flourished between
+300 and 400 years before Christ, a sort of encyclopaedia of the
+scientific knowledge of that day--and a very marvellous collection of,
+in many respects, accurate and precise knowledge it is.  But, so far as
+regards this particular topic, Aristotle, it must be confessed, has not
+got very far beyond common knowledge.  He knows a little about the
+structure of the heart.  I do not think that his knowledge is so
+inaccurate as many people fancy, but it does not amount to much.  A very
+few years after his time, however, there was a Greek philosopher,
+Erasistratus, who lived about three hundred years before Christ, and
+who must have pursued anatomy with much care, for he made the important
+discovery that there are membranous flaps, which are now called
+"valves," at the origins of the great vessels; and that there are
+certain other valves in the interior of the heart itself.
+
+Fig. 1.--The apparatus of the circulation, as at present known.  The
+capillary vessels, which connect the arteries and veins, are omitted,
+on account of their small size.  The shading of the "venous system" is
+given to all the vessels which contain venous blood; that of the
+"arterial system" to all the vessels which contain arterial blood.
+
+I have here (Fig. 1) a purposely rough, but, so far as it goes,
+accurate, diagram of the structure of the heart and the course of the
+blood.  The heart is supposed to be divided into two portions.  It
+would be possible, by very careful dissection, to split the heart down
+the middle of a partition, or so-called 'septum', which exists in it,
+and to divide it into the two portions which you see here represented;
+in which case we should have a left heart and a right heart, quite
+distinct from one another.  You will observe that there is a portion of
+each heart which is what is called the ventricle.  Now the ancients
+applied the term 'heart' simply and solely to the ventricles.  They did
+not count the rest of the heart--what we now speak of as the
+'auricles'--as any part of the heart at all; but when they spoke of the
+heart they meant the left and the right ventricles; and they described
+those great vessels, which we now call the 'pulmonary veins' and the
+'vena cava', as opening directly into the heart itself.
+
+What Erasistratus made out was that, at the roots of the aorta and the
+pulmonary artery (Fig.  1) there were valves, which opened in the
+direction indicated by the arrows; and, on the other hand, that at the
+junction of what he called the veins with the heart there were other
+valves, which also opened again in the direction indicated by the
+arrows.  This was a very capital discovery, because it proved that if
+the heart was full of fluid, and if there were any means of causing
+that fluid in the ventricles to move, then the fluid could move only in
+one direction; for you will observe that, as soon as the fluid is
+compressed, the two valves between the ventricles and the veins will be
+shut, and the fluid will be obliged to move into the arteries; and, if
+it tries to get back from them into the heart, it is prevented from
+doing so by the valves at the origin of the arteries, which we now call
+the semilunar valves (half-moon shaped valves); so that it is
+impossible, if the fluid move at all, that it should move in any other
+way than from the great veins into the arteries.  Now that was a very
+remarkable and striking discovery.
+
+But it is not given to any man to be altogether right (that is a
+reflection which it is very desirable for every man who has had the
+good luck to be nearly right once, always to bear in mind); and
+Erasistratus, while he made this capital and important discovery, made a
+very capital and important error in another direction, although it was
+a very natural error.  If, in any animal which is recently killed, you
+open one of those pulsating trunks which I referred to a short time
+ago, you will find, as a general rule, that it either contains no blood
+at all or next to none; but that, on the contrary, it is full of air.
+Very naturally, therefore, Erasistratus came to the conclusion that
+this was the normal and natural state of the arteries, and that they
+contained air.  We are apt to think this a very gross blunder; but, to
+anybody who is acquainted with the facts of the case, it is, at first
+sight, an exceedingly natural conclusion. Not only so, but Erasistratus
+might have very justly imagined that he had seen his way to the meaning
+of the connection of the left side of the heart with the lungs; for we
+find that what we now call the pulmonary vein is connected with the
+lungs, and branches out in them (Fig. 1). Finding that the greater part
+of this system of vessels was filled with air after death, this ancient
+thinker very shrewdly concluded that its real business was to receive
+air from the lungs, and to distribute that air all through the body, so
+as to get rid of the grosser humours and purify the blood.  That was a
+very natural and very obvious suggestion, and a highly ingenious one,
+though it happened to be a great error.  You will observe that the only
+way of correcting it was to experiment upon living animals, for there
+is no other way in which this point could be settled.
+
+Fig.2,--The Course of the Blood according to Galen (A.D. 170).
+
+And hence we are indebted, for the correction of the error of
+Erasistratus, to one of the greatest experimenters of ancient or modern
+times, Claudius Galenus, who lived in the second century after Christ.
+I say it was to this man more than any one else, because he knew that
+the only way of solving physiological problems was to examine into the
+facts in the living animal. And because Galen was a skilful anatomist,
+and a skilful experimenter, he was able to show in what particulars
+Erasistratus had erred, and to build up a system of thought upon this
+subject which was not improved upon for fully 1,300 years.  I have
+endeavoured, in Fig. 2, to make clear to you exactly what it was he
+tried to establish.  You will observe that this diagram is practically
+the same as that given in Fig. 1, only simplified.  The same facts may
+be looked upon by different people from different points of view. Galen
+looked upon these facts from a very different point of view from that
+which we ourselves occupy; but, so far as the facts are concerned, they
+were the same for him as for us.  Well then, the first thing that Galen
+did was to make out experimentally that, during life, the arteries are
+not full of air, but that they are full of blood.  And he describes a
+great variety of experiments which he made upon living animals with the
+view of proving this point, which he did prove effectually and for all
+time; and that you will observe was the only way of settling the
+matter.  Furthermore, he demonstrated that the cavities of the left
+side of the heart--what we now call the left auricle and the left
+ventricle--are, like the arteries, full of blood during life, and that
+that blood was of the scarlet kind--arterialised, or as he called it
+"pneumatised," blood.  It was known before, that the pulmonary artery,
+the right ventricle, and the veins, contain the darker kind of blood,
+which was thence called venous.  Having proved that the whole of the
+left side of the heart, during life, is full of scarlet arterial blood,
+Galen's next point was to inquire into the mode of communication
+between the arteries and veins.  It was known before his time that both
+arteries and veins branched out.  Galen maintained, though he could not
+prove the fact, that the ultimate branches of the arteries and veins
+communicated together somehow or other, by what he called
+'anastomoses', and that these 'anastomoses' existed not only in the body
+in general but also in the lungs.  In the next place, Galen maintained
+that all the veins of the body arise from the liver; that they draw the
+blood thence and distribute it over the body.  People laugh at that
+notion now-a-days; but if anybody will look at the facts he will see
+that it is a very probable supposition.  There is a great vein (hepatic
+vein--Fig. 1) which rises out of the liver, and that vein goes straight
+into the 'vena cava' (Fig. 1) which passes to the heart, being there
+joined by the other veins of the body.  The liver itself is fed by a
+very large vein (portal vein--Fig. 1), which comes from the alimentary
+canal.  The way the ancients looked at this matter was, that the food,
+after being received into the alimentary canal, was then taken up by the
+branches of this great vein, which are called the 'vena portae', just
+as the roots of a plant suck up nourishment from the soil in which it
+lives; that then it was carried to the liver, there to be what was
+called "concocted," which was their phrase for its conversion into
+substances more fitted for nutrition than previously existed in it.
+They then supposed that the next thing to be done was to distribute
+this fluid through the body; and Galen like his predecessors, imagined
+that the "concocted" blood, having entered the great 'vena cava', was
+distributed by its ramifications all over the body.  So that, in his
+view (Fig. 2), the course of the blood was from the intestine to the
+liver, and from the liver into the great 'vena cava', including what we
+now call the right auricle of the heart, whence it was distributed by
+the branches of the veins.  But the whole of the blood was not thus
+disposed of.  Part of the blood, it was supposed, went through what we
+now call the pulmonary arteries (Fig. 1), and, branching out there, gave
+exit to certain "fuliginous" products, and at the same time took in
+from the air a something which Galen calls the 'pneuma'.  He does not
+know anything about what we call oxygen; but it is astonishing how very
+easy it would be to turn his language into the equivalent of modern
+chemical theory.  The old philosopher had so just a suspicion of the
+real state of affairs that you could make use of his language in many
+cases, if you substituted the word "oxygen," which we now-a-days use,
+for the word 'pneuma'.  Then he imagined that the blood, further
+concocted or altered by contact with the 'pneuma', passed to a certain
+extent to the left side of the heart.  So that Galen believed that
+there was such a thing as what is now called the pulmonary
+circulation.  He believed, as much as we do, that the blood passed
+through the right side of the heart, through the artery which goes to
+the lungs, through the lungs themselves, and back by what we call the
+pulmonary veins to the left side of the heart.  But he thought it was
+only a very small portion of the blood which passes to the right side of
+the heart in this way; the rest of the blood, he thought, passed
+through the partition which separates the two ventricles of the heart.
+He describes a number of small pits, which really exist there, as
+holes, and he supposed that the greater part of the blood passed
+through these holes from the right to the left ventricle (Fig 2).
+
+It is of great importance you should clearly understand these teachings
+of Galen, because, as I said just now, they sum up all that anybody
+knew until the revival of learning; and they come to this--that the
+blood having passed from the stomach and intestines through the liver,
+and having entered the great veins, was by them distributed to every
+part of the body; that part of the blood, thus distributed, entered the
+arterial system by the 'anastomoses', as Galen called them, in the
+lungs; that a very small portion of it entered the arteries by the
+'anastomoses' in the body generally; but that the greater part of it
+passed through the septum of the heart, and so entered the left side
+and mingled with the pneumatised blood, which had been subjected to the
+air in the lungs, and was then distributed by the arteries, and
+eventually mixed with the currents of blood, coming the other way,
+through the veins.
+
+Yet one other point about the views of Galen.  He thought that both the
+contractions and dilatations of the heart--what we call the 'systole'
+or contraction of the heart, and the 'diastole' or dilatation--Galen
+thought that these were both active movements; that the heart actively
+dilated, so that it had a sort of sucking power upon the fluids which
+had access to it.  And again, with respect to the movements of the
+pulse, which anybody can feel at the wrist and elsewhere, Galen was of
+opinion that the walls of the arteries partook of that which he
+supposed to be the nature of the walls of the heart, and that they had
+the power of alternately actively contracting and actively dilating, so
+that he is careful to say that the nature of the pulse is comparable,
+not to the movement of a bag, which we fill by blowing into it, and
+which we empty by drawing the air out of it, but to the action of a
+bellows, which is actively dilated and actively compressed.
+
+Fig 3.--The course of the blood from the right to the left side of the
+heart (Realdus Columbus, 1559).
+
+After Galen's time came the collapse of the Roman Empire, the extinction
+of physical knowledge, and the repression of every kind of scientific
+inquiry, by its powerful and consistent enemy, the Church; and that
+state of things lasted until the latter part of the Middle Ages saw the
+revival of learning.  That revival of learning, so far as anatomy and
+physiology are concerned, is due to the renewed influence of the
+philosophers of ancient Greece, and indeed, of Galen.  Arabic
+commentators had translated Galen, and portions of his works had got
+into the language of the learned in the Middle Ages, in that way; but,
+by the study of the classical languages, the original text became
+accessible to the men who were then endeavouring to learn for
+themselves something about the facts of nature.  It was a century or
+more before these men, finding themselves in the presence of a
+master--finding that all their lives were occupied in attempting to
+ascertain for themselves that which was familiar to him--I say it took
+the best part of a hundred years before they could fairly see that their
+business was not to follow him, but to follow his example--namely, to
+look into the facts of nature for themselves, and to carry on, in his
+spirit, the work he had begun.  That was first done by Vesalius, one of
+the greatest anatomists who ever lived; but his work does not specially
+bear upon the question we are now concerned with.  So far as regards
+the motions of the heart and the course of the blood, the first man in
+the Middle Ages, and indeed the only man who did anything which was of
+real importance, was one Realdus Columbus, who was professor at Padua
+in the year 1559, and published a great anatomical treatise.  What
+Realdus Columbus did was this; once more resorting to the method of
+Galen, turning to the living animal, experimenting, he came upon new
+facts, and one of these new facts was that there was not merely a
+subordinate communication between the blood of the right side of the
+heart and that of the left side of the heart, through the lungs, but
+that there was a constant steady current of blood, setting through the
+pulmonary artery on the right side, through the lungs, and back by the
+pulmonary veins to the left side of the heart (Fig.3).  Such was the
+capital discovery and demonstration of Realdus Columbus.  He is the man
+who discovered what is loosely called the 'pulmonary circulation'; and
+it really is quite absurd, in the face of the fact, that twenty years
+afterwards we find Ambrose Pare, the great French surgeon, ascribing
+this discovery to him as a matter of common notoriety, to find that
+attempts are made to give the credit of it to other people.  So far as
+I know, this discovery of the course of the blood through the lungs,
+which is called the pulmonary circulation, is the one step in real
+advance that was made between the time of Galen and the time of
+Harvey.  And I would beg you to note that the word "circulation" is
+improperly employed when it is applied to the course of the blood
+through the lungs.  The blood from the right side of the heart, in
+getting to the left side of the heart, only performs a half-circle--it
+does not perform a whole circle--it does not return to the place from
+whence it started; and hence the discovery of the so-called "pulmonary
+circulation" has nothing whatever to do with that greater discovery
+which I shall point out to you by-and-by was made by Harvey, and which
+is alone really entitled to the name of the circulation of the blood.
+
+If anybody wants to understand what Harvey's great desert really was, I
+would suggest to him that he devote himself to a course of reading,
+which I cannot promise shall be very entertaining, but which, in this
+respect at any rate, will be highly instructive--namely, the works of
+the anatomists of the latter part of the 16th century and the beginning
+of the 17th century.  If anybody will take the trouble to do that which
+I have thought it my business to do, he will find that the doctrines
+respecting the action of the heart and the motion of the blood which
+were taught in every university in Europe, whether in Padua or in Paris,
+were essentially those put forward by Galen, 'plus' the discovery of
+the pulmonary course of the blood which had been made by Realdus
+Columbus.  In every chair of anatomy and physiology (which studies were
+not then separated) in Europe, it was taught that the blood brought to
+the liver by the portal vein, and carried out of the liver to the 'vena
+cava' by the hepatic vein, is distributed from the right side of the
+heart, through the other veins, to all parts of the body; that the
+blood of the arteries takes a like course from the heart towards the
+periphery; and that it is there, by means of the 'anastomoses', more or
+less mixed up with the venous blood.  It so happens, by a curious
+chance, that up to the year 1625 there was at Padua, which was Harvey's
+own university, a very distinguished professor, Spigelius, whose work
+is extant, and who teaches exactly what I am now telling you.  It is
+perfectly true that, some time before, Harvey's master, Fabricius, had
+not only re-discovered, but had drawn much attention to certain
+pouch-like structures, which are called the valves of the veins, found
+in the muscular parts of the body, all of which are directed towards
+the heart, and consequently impede the flow of the blood in the
+opposite direction.  And you will find it stated by people who have not
+thought much about the matter, that it was this discovery of the valves
+of the veins which led Harvey to imagine the course of the circulation
+of the blood.  Now it did not lead Harvey to imagine anything of the
+kind.  He had heard all about it from his master, Fabricius, who made a
+great point of these valves in the veins, and he had heard the theories
+which Fabricius entertained upon the subject, whose impression as to
+the use of the valves was simply this--that they tended to take off any
+excess of pressure of the blood in passing from the heart to the
+extremities; for Fabricius believed, with the rest of the world, that
+the blood in the veins flowed from the heart towards the extremities.
+This, under the circumstances, was as good a theory as any other,
+because the action of the valves depends altogether upon the form and
+nature of the walls of the structures in which they are attached; and
+without accurate experiment, it was impossible to say whether the
+theory of Fabricius was right or wrong.  But we not only have the
+evidence of the facts themselves that these could tell Harvey nothing
+about the circulation, but we have his own distinct declaration as to
+the considerations which led him to the true theory of the circulation
+of the blood, and amongst these the valves of the veins are not
+mentioned.
+
+Fig. 4.--The circulation of the blood as demonstrated by Harvey (A.D.
+1628).
+
+Now then we may come to Harvey himself.  When you read Harvey's
+treatise, which is one of the most remarkable scientific monographs
+with which I am acquainted--it occupies between 50 and 60 pages of a
+small quarto in Latin, and is as terse and concise as it possibly can
+be--when you come to look at Harvey's work, you will find that he had
+long struggled with the difficulties of the accepted doctrine of the
+circulation.  He had received from Fabricius, and from all the great
+authorities of the day, the current view of the circulation of the
+blood.  But he was a man with that rarest of all
+qualities--intellectual honesty; and by dint of cultivating that great
+faculty, which is more moral than intellectual, it had become impossible
+for him to say he believed anything which he did not clearly believe.
+This is a most uncomfortable peculiarity--for it gets you into all
+sorts of difficulties with all sorts of people--but, for scientific
+purposes, it is absolutely invaluable.  Harvey possessed this
+peculiarity in the highest degree, and so it was impossible for him to
+accept what all the authorities told him, and he looked into the matter
+for himself.  But he was not hasty.  He worked at his new views, and he
+lectured about them at the College of Physicians for nine years; he did
+not print them until he was a man of fifty years of age; and when he
+did print them he accompanied them with a demonstration which has never
+been shaken, and which will stand till the end of time.  What Harvey
+proved, in short, was this (see Fig. 4)--that everybody had made a
+mistake, for want of sufficiently accurate experimentation as to the
+actual existence of the fact which everybody assumed.  To anybody who
+looks at the blood-vessels with an unprejudiced eye it seems so natural
+that the blood should all come out of the liver, and be distributed by
+the veins to the different parts of the body, that nothing can seem
+simpler or more plain; and consequently no one could make up his mind
+to dispute this apparently obvious assumption.  But Harvey did dispute
+it; and when he came to investigate the matter he discovered that it was
+a profound mistake, and that, all this time, the blood had been moving
+in just the opposite direction, namely, from the small ramifications of
+the veins towards the right side of the heart.  Harvey further found
+that, in the arteries, the blood, as had previously been known, was
+travelling from the greater trunks towards the ramifications. Moreover,
+referring to the ideas of Columbus and of Galen (for he was a great
+student of literature, and did justice to all his predecessors), Harvey
+accepts and strengthens their view of the course of the blood through
+the lungs, and he shows how it fitted into his general scheme.  If you
+will follow the course of the arrows in Fig. 4 you will see at once
+that--in accordance with the views of Columbus--the blood passes from
+the right side of the heart, through the lungs, to the left side.  Then,
+adds Harvey, with abundant proof, it passes through the arteries to all
+parts of the body; and then, at the extremities of their branches in
+the different parts of the body, it passes (in what way he could not
+tell, for his means of investigation did not allow him to say) into the
+roots of the vents--then from the roots of the veins it goes into the
+trunk and veins--then to the right side of the heart--and then to the
+lungs, and so on.
+
+That, you will observe, makes a complete circuit; and it was precisely
+here that the originality of Harvey lay.  There never yet has been
+produced, and I do not believe there can be produced, a tittle of
+evidence to show that, before his time, any one had the slightest
+suspicion that a single drop of blood, starting in the left ventricle
+of the heart, passes through the whole arterial system, comes back
+through the venous system, goes through the lungs, and comes back to
+the place whence it started.  But that is the circulation of the blood,
+and it was exactly this which Harvey was the first man to suspect, to
+discover, and to demonstrate.
+
+But this was by no means the only thing Harvey did.  He was the first
+who discovered and who demonstrated the true mechanism of the heart's
+action.  No one, before his time, conceived that the movement of the
+blood was entirely due to the mechanical action of the heart as a
+pump.  There were all sorts of speculations about the matter, but nobody
+had formed this conception, and nobody understood that the so-called
+systole of the heart is a state of active contraction, and the
+so-called diastole is a mere passive dilatation.  Even within our own
+age that matter had been discussed.  Harvey is as clear as possible
+about it.  He says the movement of the blood is entirely due to the
+contractions of the walls of the heart--that it is the propelling
+apparatus--and all recent investigation tends to show that he was
+perfectly right. And from this followed the true theory of the pulse.
+Galen said, as I pointed out just now, that the arteries dilate as
+bellows, which have an active power of dilatation and contraction, and
+not as bags which are blown out and collapse.  Harvey said it was
+exactly the contrary--the arteries dilate as bags simply because the
+stroke of the heart propels the blood into them; and, when they relax
+again, they relax as bags which are no longer stretched, simply because
+the force of the blow of the heart is spent.  Harvey has been
+demonstrated to be absolutely right in this statement of his; and yet,
+so slow is the progress of truth, that, within my time, the question of
+the active dilatation of the arteries has been discussed.
+
+Thus Harvey's contributions to physiology may be summed up as follows:
+In the first place, he was the first person who ever imagined, and
+still more who demonstrated, the true course of the circulation of the
+blood in the body; in the second place, he was the first person who
+ever understood the mechanism of the heart, and comprehended that its
+contraction was the cause of the motion of the blood; and thirdly, he
+was the first person who took a just view of the nature of the pulse.
+These are the three great contributions which he made to the science of
+physiology; and I shall not err in saying--I speak in the presence of
+distinguished physiologists, but I am perfectly certain that they will
+endorse what I say--that upon that foundation the whole of our
+knowledge of the human body, with the exception of the motor apparatus
+and the sense organs, has been gradually built up, and that upon that
+foundation the whole rests.  And not only does scientific physiology
+rest upon it, but everything like scientific medicine also rests upon
+it.  As you know--I hope it is now a matter of popular knowledge--it is
+the foundation of all rational speculation about morbid processes; it
+is the only key to the rational interpretation of that commonest of all
+indications of disease, the state of the pulse; so that, both
+theoretically and practically, this discovery, this demonstration of
+Harvey's, has had an effect which is absolutely incalculable, and the
+consequences of which will accumulate from age to age until they result
+in a complete body of physiological science.
+
+Fig.5.--The junction of the arteries and veins by capillary tubes,
+discovered by Malpighi (A.D.  1664).
+
+I regret that I am unable to pursue this subject much further; but there
+is one point I should mention.  In Harvey's time, the microscope was
+hardly invented.  It is quite true that in some of his embryological
+researches he speaks of having made use of a hand glass; but that was
+the most that he seems to have known anything about, or that was
+accessible to him at that day. And so it came about, that, although he
+examined the course of the blood in many of the lower animals--watched
+the pulsation of the heart in shrimps, and animals of that kind--he
+never could put the final coping-stone on his edifice.  He did not know
+to the day of his death, although quite clear about the fact that the
+arteries and the veins do communicate, how it is that they
+communicate--how it was that the blood of the arteries passed into the
+veins.  One is grieved to think that the grand old man should have gone
+down to his tomb without the vast satisfaction it would have given to
+him to see what the Italian naturalist Malpighi showed only seven years
+later, in 1664, when he demonstrated, in a living frog, the actual
+passage of the blood from the ultimate ramifications of the arteries
+into the veins.  But that absolute ocular demonstration of the truth of
+the views he had maintained throughout his life it was not granted to
+Harvey to see.  What he did experience was this:  that on the
+publication of his doctrines, they were met with the greatest possible
+opposition; and I have no doubt savage things were uttered in those old
+controversies, and that a great many people said that these new-fangled
+doctrines, reducing living processes to mere mechanism, would sap the
+foundations of religion and morality.  I do not know for certain that
+they did, but they said things very like it.  The first point was to
+show that Harvey's views were absolutely untrue; and not being able to
+succeed in that, opponents said they were not new; and not being able
+to succeed in that, that they didn't matter.  That is the usual course
+with all new discoveries.  But Harvey troubled himself very little
+about these things.  He remained perfectly quiet; for although reputed
+a hot-tempered man, he never would have anything to do with controversy
+if he could help it; and he only replied to one of his antagonists
+after twenty years' interval, and then in the most charming spirit of
+candour and moderation.  But he had the great satisfaction of living to
+see his doctrine accepted upon all sides.  At the time of his death,
+there was not an anatomical school in Europe in which the doctrine of
+the circulation of the blood was not taught in the way in which Harvey
+had laid it down.  In that respect he had a happiness which is granted
+to very few men.
+
+I have said that the other great investigation of Harvey is not one
+which can be dealt with to a general audience.  It is very complex, and
+therefore I must ask you to take my word for it that, although not so
+fortunate an investigation, not so entirely accordant with later results
+as the doctrine of the circulation; yet that still, this little
+treatise of Harvey's has in many directions exerted an influence hardly
+less remarkable than that exerted by the Essay upon the Circulation of
+the Blood.
+
+And now let me ask your attention to two or three closing remarks.
+
+If you look back upon that period of about 100 years which commences
+with Harvey's birth--I mean from the year 1578 to 1680 or
+thereabouts--I think you will agree with me, that it constitutes one of
+the most remarkable epochs in the whole of that thousand years which we
+may roughly reckon as constituting the history of Britain.  In the
+commencement of that period, we may see, if not the setting, at any
+rate the declension of that system of personal rule which had existed
+under previous sovereigns, and which, after a brief and spasmodic
+revival in the time of George the Third, has now sunk, let us hope,
+into the limbo of forgotten things. The latter part of that 100 years
+saw the dawn of that system of free government which has grown and
+flourished, and which, if the men of the present day be the worthy
+descendants of Eliott and Pym, and Hampden and Milton, will go on
+growing as long as this realm lasts. Within that time, one of the
+strangest phenomena which I think I may say any nation has ever
+manifested arose to its height and fell--I mean that strange and
+altogether marvellous phenomenon, English Puritanism.  Within that
+time, England had to show statesmen like Burleigh, Strafford, and
+Cromwell--I mean men who were real statesmen, and not intriguers,
+seeking to make a reputation at the expense of the nation.  In the
+course of that time, the nation had begun to throw off those swarms of
+hardy colonists which, to the benefit of the world--and as I fancy, in
+the long run, to the benefit of England herself--have now become the
+United States of America; and, during the same epoch, the first
+foundations were laid of that Indian Empire which, it may be, future
+generations will not look upon as so happy a product of English
+enterprise and ingenuity.  In that time we had poets such as Spenser,
+Shakespere, and Milton; we had a great philosopher, in Hobbes; and we
+had a clever talker about philosophy, in Bacon.  In the beginning of
+the period, Harvey revolutionized the biological sciences, and at the
+end of it, Newton was preparing the revolution of the physical sciences.
+I know not any period of our history--I doubt if there be any period of
+the history of any nation--which has precisely such a record as this to
+show for a hundred years.  But I do not recall these facts to your
+recollection for a mere vainglorious purpose.  I myself am of opinion
+that the memory of the great men of a nation is one of its most precious
+possessions--not because we have any right to plume ourselves upon
+their having existed as a matter of national vanity, but because we
+have a just and rational ground of expectation that the race which has
+brought forth such products as these may, in good time and under
+fortunate circumstances, produce the like again.  I am one of those
+people who do not believe in the natural decay of nations.  I believe,
+to speak frankly, though perhaps not quite so politely as I could
+wish--but I am getting near the end of my lecture--that the whole
+theory is a speculation invented by cowards to excuse knaves.  My
+belief is, that so far as this old English stock is concerned it has in
+it as much sap and vitality and power as it had two centuries ago; and
+that, with due pruning of rotten branches, and due hoeing up of weeds,
+which will grow about the roots, the like products will be yielded
+again.  The "weeds" to which I refer are mainly three:  the first of
+them is dishonesty, the second is sentimentality, and the third is
+luxury.  If William Harvey had been a dishonest man--I mean in the high
+sense of the word--a man who failed in the ideal of honesty--he would
+have believed what it was easiest to believe--that which he received on
+the authority of his predecessors.  He would not have felt that his
+highest duty was to know of his own knowledge that that which he said
+he believed was true, and we should never have had those
+investigations, pursued through good report and evil report, which ended
+in discoveries so fraught with magnificent results for science and for
+man.  If Harvey had been a sentimentalist--by which I mean a person of
+false pity, a person who has not imagination enough to see that great,
+distant evils may be much worse than those which we can picture to
+ourselves, because they happen to be immediate and near (for that, I
+take it, is the essence of sentimentalism)--if Harvey had been a person
+of that kind, he, being one of the kindest men living, would never have
+pursued those researches which, as he tells us over and over again, he
+was obliged to pursue in order to the ascertainment of those facts which
+have turned out to be of such inestimable value to the human race; and
+I say, if on such grounds he had failed to do so, he would have failed
+in his duty to the human race.  The third point is that Harvey was
+devoid of care either for wealth, or for riches, or for ambition.  The
+man found a higher ideal than any of these things in the pursuit of
+truth and the benefit of his fellow-men.  If we all go and do likewise,
+I think there is no fear for the decadence of England.  I think that our
+children and our successors will find themselves in a commonwealth,
+different it may be from that for which Eliott, and Pym, and Hampden
+struggled, but one which will be identical in the substance of its
+aims--great, worthy, and well to live in.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Circulation of the Blood
+
diff --git a/old/thx1910.zip b/old/thx1910.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ceef282
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/thx1910.zip