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1. Why about the fourth month milk is engendred, and of what. 2. The effects of the Diaphragma inflamed. 3. Pericardium. 4. The Hearts Flesh, Fibres, and Ventricles. 5. The Heart why hot and dry. 6. The vital faculty. 7. The vital spirits how ingendred. 8. Systole and Diastole. 9. The Hearts motion. 10. How c••used.
AS soon as the child groweth big, about the fourth month, the menstruous blood flowes upward to the breasts, and when the child is born, it flowes from thence; and being
suck'd by the child, the veins of the breasts do avoid vacuity, draw the blood upward for generation of new milk. 2. In the breasts of Virgins, and of some men also, there is sometimes found a whitish liquor, which is not milk, because it hath nei∣ther the tast, nor thickness, nor nutritive quality of milk. 3. The breasts, or paps, are glandulous bodies, principally or∣dained for generation of milk; and in the second place for re∣ception of excrementitious humors, and guarding of the heart. 4. The reason why about the fourth month the blood flowes upward into the breasts, is, that the child growing big, and wanting sufficient food, might struggle to get out, which it would not do having sufficient nutriment. 5. It is not fit that the child out of the womb, should feed on blood as it did in the womb, because then the mouth of the veins being open∣ed, the blood would run out, and so nature be overthrown; neither would God accustom man to blood, left he should be∣come cruel and bestial.
II. Upon the inflammation of the diaphragma, follow of∣tentimes phrensies, by reason of the society it hath by the nerves with the brain, to which it sendeth fumes and hot vapors: which phrensie is known from that of the brain, by the shortness of the breath, the chief organ of breath being ill-affected, so that the breast cannot freely move it self: and because the Diaphragma is united to the Pleura, and Perito∣naeum, which containeth all the organs in the inferiour belly: hence all these parts are drawn upwards by the motion of the Diaphragma.
III. The tunicle of the heart, called Pericardium, hath with∣in it a water for refrigeration and moistning of the heart, which is begot of vapours, condensate by the coldness of the mem∣brane, as some think, or else it sweats through the tunicles of the veins and arteries: they that have hot hearts have but lit∣tle of this water, and it abounds most where the heart is col∣der; but whether the defect of this water be the cause of the heat in the heart, or the heat the cause of this defect, it is un∣certain, as it is with the sea-water, which is turned into va∣pours by the suns heat, and these vapours turned into water a∣gain by the coldness of the middle Region: so the heat of the heart turns this water into vapours, and the membrane converts these vapours into water again, and so this circula∣tion continues till the heat of the heart be extinguished by death, then is found water onely.
IV. The heart hath a peculiar hard flesh of its own, that it
might be the better able to undergo its perpetual motion, to contain the spirits and life-blood, and to resist external inju∣ries. 2. This flesh is not musculous, because the motion of the muscles is voluntary, but the hearts motion is natural. 3. The heart hath both straight, transverse, and circular fibers, for attraction and expulsion; and oblique fibers also for re∣tension; but these fibers are of the same substance with the heart, and not of a different, as the fibers of the Muscles, which are parts of the nerves and Tendons. 4. The heart is fed with gross blood, answerable to its own gross substance, by the vein called Coronaria, compassing the Basis of the heart. 5. The heart hath two ventricles, whereof the right is hottest exten∣sive, as Aristotle will have it, for it contains the life-blood; the left is hottest intensive, as containing the vital spirits, and so Galen saith. 6. If we consider the situation of the right ven∣tricle, which is in the right side, and the priviledge it hath in living longer then the left; we may with Aristotle say, that the right ventricle is the more noble of the two; but if we con∣sider that the left ventricle contains the vitall spirit, which in dignity excels the blood which is in the right, we must with Galen give the preheminence to the left: and so these two may be reconciled.
V. The heart is a hot and drie substance, that it might be the fitter both to beget and to preserve the vital spirits; to at∣tenuate the venal, and to procreate the arterial blood: And though the spirits be hotter extensively, yet the substance of the heart is hotter intensively; as burning coles are hotter then flaming straw.
VI. The vital faculty by which the vital spirits are ingen∣dred for animating the body, and preserving the natural heat, is an effect of the soul, as all faculties are, and not of the heart; yet here it chiefly resides, because of the soul which here exer∣ciseth her chief functions of life. 2. This vital faculty dif∣fers from the animal, because it is not subject to fatigation, nor rests in sleep, nor doth it accompany the imagination or appre∣hension of the object, as the animal doth. 3. It is different from the pulsifick faculty, because this is subservient to the vital; neither doth the pulsifick beget spirits, or is it diffused every where as the vital is. 4. The vital differs from the ve∣gitive faculty, because the vegitive is in plants and insects, but not the vital, as it is procreative of spirits: for the dull heat of insects is not so soon spent as to need reparation by genera∣tion of spirits. 5. It differs from the animal motive faculty,
because it is necessary and perpetual; the animal is voluntary, and sometimes ceaseth.
VII. The vital spirits are ingendred in the left ventricle of the heart, partly of aire prepared in the lungs, and conveyed to the heart by the Arteria venosa; and partly of the purest blood, powred out of the mouth of Vena cava into the right ventricle, where it is prepared and attenuated, a part whereof is conveyed for nourishing of the lungs by the Vena arteriosa, the other part sweats through the partition that divides the heart, and in the left ventricle is mingled with the aire, and turned into spirits by its excessive heat.
VIII. The Diastole and Systole, that is, the dilatation and contraction of the heart and arteries, is all one and at the same time: for the heart and arteries are so united, that they make but one body; so there is but one pulsifick vertue in both, and the end of their motion is the same, to wit, the vegitation and life of the body; the suddenness of the motion in the remotest arteries from the heart, and the strong beating of the pulse and heart in Feavers and anger, do shew the identity of motion in both. 2. The arteries are moved by the spirits of the heart, conveyed by their tunicles rather then their cavity; for up∣on the pressing of the tunicles the pulse ceaseth; but not when the cavity is stuffed, or stopped. They are not then moved by their heat and blood, but by the heart; as may be seen by bin∣ding the arteries, whose motion beneath the binding saileth, the commerce between it and the heart being intercepted. 3. The heart is first dilated by receiving the aire, then it is con∣tracted by expelling the fuliginous vapours. 4. The heart strikes the breast in its dilatation, not in its contraction or Sy∣stole, because the left ventricle, which is the originall of the Arteries, is distended in the Diastole, and so toucheth the breast about the left pap.
IX. The motion of the heart is not voluntary, because we cannot command it; nor sensitive, because it is not performed by the nerves and muscles; nor simple, because there are two motions; nor compounded, because they are contrary; and of contrary motions can be no compositions▪ nor is it violent, be∣cause it is not repugnant to its nature; nor is it caused by an externall agent, as the trembling of the heart is by distempers, vapours, or humours; but the hearts motion is natural, yet not caused by the elementary form, for so there should be more agents in our bodies then one, and its motion should be ••it••e•• upward or downward, but it is natural in respect of the
soul, which is the chief nature that works in animal bodies; and in respect of the fibers heat, and spirits of the heart, which are natural organs; and in respect of the natural use or end of this motion; for the heart dilates it self to receive aire and blood; it contracts it self to be emptied of its fumes, and to communicate its spirits to the nerves; which ends are na∣turall.
X. When Aristotle saith, that the motion of the heart is caused by heat and cold, he contradicts not the Physitians in affirming the soul, or its vital faculty to be the cause of this mo∣tion; for heat and cold are subordinate instruments to the soul, which by the heat of the blood and spirits, dilates the heart, and by the attraction of the cold air contracteth it, as we see water by the heat of the fire swel and dilate it self, but up∣on the breathing of cold air, to contract and fall down again.