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BEcause the threefold substance which is in euery particular part issuing from * 1.1 the originals or principles of our generation, doth continually wast and suf∣fer detriment; Nature who is studious of her owne conseruation by a perpe∣tuall affluence of Aliment, laboureth to restore and make good that which is so necessarily spent and depopulated. The common Aliment of the parts is the bloud, which all the Veines do draw from the Liuer as out of a common magazine or store-house: Now the bloud could not be transported from the Liuer to those parts which are most distant and remote from it, vnlesse those parts had some continuity with the fountaine.
It was therefore necessary that there should be made and formed certaine canals as it were water-pipes, bored to containe, conserue and conduct the bloud throughout the whole body. Such are the Veines which Aristotle cals the vesselles or conceptacles of bloud. The bloud therefore is contayned in the veine as in his proper place, and as the * 1.2 Elemēts in their proper places receiue no alteration; (for the place is the conseruer of the thing placed) so the bloud within the veines retaineth his benigne nature, but out of the veines it presently either putrifieth or caketh.
There is therefore in the Veines an inbred power to contayne and preserue the bloud, which also is their primary vse. Another vse that the veines haue is to distribute the bloud; which distribution is performed by an action that is, by attraction or drawing from the * 1.3 neighbour veines, and by transmission or transportation vnto others, and for this action sake were the right and circular fibres of the veines ordayned.
Hippocrates in his Booke de Alimento maketh mention of a third vse of the Veines, & that is to leade along heat and spirits into the particular parts. And thēce it is that though * 1.4 the Arteries bee tyed the partes doe not presently sphacelate or mortifie, because by the veines there is an influence of a double heate and spirit, that is to say, Vitall and Naturall. The Vitall they receiue from the Heart by the wonderfull Anastomoses or innoculations of the Arteries; the Naturall they drawe directly from the Liuer. By this influent spirite the Inbred Genius of euery part is roused vp and quickned, and by it as by a good Manci∣ple is the nourishment conuayed into the whole body.
The last vse of the Veines which must bee referred also to their common action, is * 1.5 the alteration of the bloud, for they are qualified to coyne and change the bloud, some to prepare it as the Mesentery, others to perfect it as the great branches of the hollow veine. And this faculty or qualification they haue from the Liuer by Irradiation, as the Seminary vessels haue from the Testicles that power which they call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
There are also other particular vses of priuate veines; as of the Emulgents to con∣uay * 1.6 the Serous or wheyie humor; of the seede vessels to giue a rudiment vnto seed: of the Mesaraicks to alter the Chylus and to transport it to the liuer; of the venall or short vessell to belch out melancholy iuyce into the cauity of the stomacke for the prouoking of ap∣petite; of the veynes of the wombe to exclude the surplusage of blood at certaine and determinate periods, of the veynes of the splene to purge faeculent or drossy blood, and so of the rest: for particulars we shall better handle in the following discourse.
Hippocrates the Oracle of Physicke from the habite and structure of the veynes, drewe many and those notable signs of the state of the whole body. Those that haue broade veines, sayth hee, haue also broade bellyes and broade bones, for, because the blood through the veines is diuided into the whole body, we may well make estimation of the plenty and temper of the bloode by the amplitude or straytnesse of the veynes. They that haue much blood are esteemed hot for their veynes are large. If the veynes be nar∣row and slender, Aristotle accounteth them cold. They that haue much flesh haue small veynes, red blood, and little bellyes and bowels: on the contrary, they that haue litle flesh haue large veynes, blacke blood, great bowels, and side wambes or bellyes. Finally by the veynes the whole body hath a kind of connexion or coherence, whence it is that they are called common ligaments.