It will not be foreign to the subject if I here show further, from certain familiar reasonings, that the circulation is matter both of convenience and necessity. In the first place, since death is a corruption1 which takes place through deficiency of heat, 11 and since all living things are warm, all dying things cold, there must be a particular seat and fountain, a kind of home and hearth2, where the cherisher of nature, the original of the native fire, is stored and preserved; from which heat and life are dispensed3 to all parts as from a fountain head; from which sustenance4 may be derived5; and upon which concoction6 and nutrition, and all vegetative energy may depend. Now, that the heart is this place, that the heart is the principle of life, and that all passes in the manner just mentioned, I trust no one will deny.
The blood, therefore, required to have motion, and indeed such a motion that it should return again to the heart; for sent to the external parts of the body far from its fountain, as Aristotle says, and without motion it would become congealed7. For we see motion generating and keeping up heat and spirits under ail8 circumstances, and rest allowing them to escape and be dissipated. The blood, therefore, becoming thick or congealed by the cold of the extreme and outward parts, and robbed of its spirits, just as it is in the dead, it was imperative9 that from its fount and origin, it should again receive heat and spirits, and all else requisite10 to its preservation11 — that, by returning, it should be renovated12 and restored.
We frequently see how the extremities13 are chilled by the external cold, how the nose and cheeks and hands look blue, and how the blood, stagnating14 in them as in the pendent or lower parts of a corpse15, becomes of a dusky hue16; the limbs at the same time getting torpid17, so that they can scarcely be moved, and seem almost to have lost their vitality18. Now they can by no means be so effectually, and especially so speedily restored to heat and colour and life, as by a new efflux and contact of heat from its source. But how can parts attract in which the heat and life are almost extinct? Or how should they whose passages are filled with condensed and frigid19 blood, admit fresh aliment — renovated blood — unless they had first got rid of their old contents? Unless the heart were truly that fountain where life and heat are restored to the refrigerated fluid, and whence new blood, warm, imbued20 with spirits, being sent out by the arteries21, that which has become cooled and effete22 is forced on, and all the particles recover their heat which was failing, and their vital stimulus23 wellnigh exhausted24.
Hence it is that if the heart be unaffected, life and health may be restored to almost all the other parts of the body; but if the heart be chilled, or smitten25 with any serious disease, it seems matter of necessity that the whole animal fabric26 should suffer and fall into decay. When the source is corrupted27, there is nothing, as Aristotle says,12 which can be of service either to it or aught that depends on it. And hence, by the way, it may perchance be why grief, and love, and envy, and anxiety, and all affections of the mind of a similar kind are accompanied with emaciation28 and decay, or with disordered fluids and crudity29, which engender30 all manner of diseases and consume the body of man. For every affection of the mind that is attended with either pain or pleasure, hope or fear, is the cause of an agitation31 whose influence extends to the heart, and there induces change from the natural constitution, in the temperature, the pulse and the rest, which impairing32 all nutrition in its source and abating33 the powers at large, it is no wonder that various forms of incurable34 disease in the extremities and in the trunk are the consequence, inasmuch as in such circumstances the whole body labours under the effects of vitiated nutrition and a want of native heat.
Moreover, when we see that all animals live through food digested in their interior, it is imperative that the digestion35 and distribution be perfect, and, as a consequence, that there be a place and receptacle where the aliment is perfected and whence it is distributed to the several members. Now this place is the heart, for it is the only organ in the body which contains blood for the general use; all the others receive it merely for their peculiar36 or private advantage, just as the heart also has a supply for its own especial behoof in its coronary veins37 and arteries. But it is of the store which the heart contains in its auricles and ventricles that I here speak. Then the heart is the only organ which is so situated38 and constituted that it can distribute the blood in due proportion to the several parts of the body, the quantity sent to each being according to the dimensions of the artery39 which supplies it, the heart serving as a magazine or fountain ready to meet its demands.
Further, a certain impulse or force, as well as an impeller or forcer, such as the heart, was required to effect this distribution and motion of the blood; both because the blood is disposed from slight causes, such as cold, alarm, horror, and the like, to collect in its source, to concentrate like parts to a whole, or the drops of water spilt upon a table to the mass of liquid; and because it is forced from the capillary40 veins into the smaller ramifications41, and from these into the larger trunks by the motion of the extremities and the compression of the muscles generally. The blood is thus more disposed to move from the circumference42 to the centre than in the opposite direction, even were there no valves to oppose its motion; wherefore, that it may leave its source and enter more confined and colder channels, and flow against the direction to which it spontaneously inclines, the blood requires both force and impelling43 power. Now such is the heart and the heart alone, and that in the way and manner already explained.
点击收听单词发音
1 corruption | |
n.腐败,堕落,贪污 | |
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2 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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3 dispensed | |
v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 );施与;配(药) | |
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4 sustenance | |
n.食物,粮食;生活资料;生计 | |
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5 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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6 concoction | |
n.调配(物);谎言 | |
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7 congealed | |
v.使凝结,冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 );(指血)凝结 | |
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8 ail | |
v.生病,折磨,苦恼 | |
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9 imperative | |
n.命令,需要;规则;祈使语气;adj.强制的;紧急的 | |
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10 requisite | |
adj.需要的,必不可少的;n.必需品 | |
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11 preservation | |
n.保护,维护,保存,保留,保持 | |
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12 renovated | |
翻新,修复,整修( renovate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13 extremities | |
n.端点( extremity的名词复数 );尽头;手和足;极窘迫的境地 | |
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14 stagnating | |
v.停滞,不流动,不发展( stagnate的现在分词 ) | |
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15 corpse | |
n.尸体,死尸 | |
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16 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
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17 torpid | |
adj.麻痹的,麻木的,迟钝的 | |
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18 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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19 frigid | |
adj.寒冷的,凛冽的;冷淡的;拘禁的 | |
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20 imbued | |
v.使(某人/某事)充满或激起(感情等)( imbue的过去式和过去分词 );使充满;灌输;激发(强烈感情或品质等) | |
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21 arteries | |
n.动脉( artery的名词复数 );干线,要道 | |
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22 effete | |
adj.无生产力的,虚弱的 | |
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23 stimulus | |
n.刺激,刺激物,促进因素,引起兴奋的事物 | |
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24 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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25 smitten | |
猛打,重击,打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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26 fabric | |
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织 | |
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27 corrupted | |
(使)败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)腐化; 引起(计算机文件等的)错误; 破坏 | |
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28 emaciation | |
n.消瘦,憔悴,衰弱 | |
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29 crudity | |
n.粗糙,生硬;adj.粗略的 | |
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30 engender | |
v.产生,引起 | |
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31 agitation | |
n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
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32 impairing | |
v.损害,削弱( impair的现在分词 ) | |
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33 abating | |
减少( abate的现在分词 ); 减去; 降价; 撤消(诉讼) | |
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34 incurable | |
adj.不能医治的,不能矫正的,无救的;n.不治的病人,无救的人 | |
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35 digestion | |
n.消化,吸收 | |
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36 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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37 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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38 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
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39 artery | |
n.干线,要道;动脉 | |
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40 capillary | |
n.毛细血管;adj.毛细管道;毛状的 | |
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41 ramifications | |
n.结果,后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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42 circumference | |
n.圆周,周长,圆周线 | |
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43 impelling | |
adj.迫使性的,强有力的v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的现在分词 ) | |
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