The blood, anatomically, physiologically, & pathologically considered, with a view to exemplify or set forth, by instance or example, the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, as revealed and declared in holy writ / by Charles Edward Joseph.

  • Joseph Charles Edward.
Date:
[1846]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The blood, anatomically, physiologically, & pathologically considered, with a view to exemplify or set forth, by instance or example, the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, as revealed and declared in holy writ / by Charles Edward Joseph. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    scarce seen through the thick cloud of lawless passion and una- bashed ignorance, barbarian violence, and monastic superstition that rested upon the earth. From the seventh to the twelfth century, the Arabian physicians were the most famed, and justly so, for their attention to chemistry, a subject of eminent impor- tance in medicine, and more especially useful in the prosecution of physiological study. The fourteenth century brought a great step in the science of medicine. Hitherto anatomists, in the pursuit of their study, had only dissected the animals supposed most similar in structure to man, seldom or never venturing to examine the human body, but then Mondini, professor of ana- tomy at Bologna, publicly dissected human subjects, and pub- lished the result of his researches. This will be at once seen to have great influence upon our present subject. The next age is found to have produced a sect of physicians who believed the entire body, fluids as well as solids, to be subject to the same laws as inanimate matter. Vesalius and others discovered, in the sixteenth century, many of the errors which the ancient doc- tors taught in their anatomy, thus making another important step. It appears that about this time, physicians generally believed in a limited kind of circulation, namely, that blood passed out from the heart by the veins as well as arteries, the nutritious portion by the former, the spirituous part by the lat- ter, but that none of this same blood returned to the heart, being expended for the repair of the system; a chyle was said to be absorbed by the mesenteric veins, conveyed to the liver, there to acquire the colour of blood, and from thence in that form to the heart. This very imperfect theory was completely put aside in the next century, by the discovery of the complete circulation of the blood, by the illustrious Harvey. It seems that this great man endured much of the opposition which commonly attacks the grandest and most useful discoveries, and then promulga- tors, for it is said his practice declined in consequence, and his doctrine was disbelieved by the profession. However, the supe- riority of truth over error is triumphantly shewn by a statement