ARANTIUS. ARANTIUS (Jul. Cæs.)' of Bologna, in the University of which he was professor. Born 1530, he died 1589, and was one of the best anatomists of his age, having made many interesting observations in the science he professed, some novel, and others in correction of accredited errors. He insisted particularly on the imperviousness of the septum ventriculorum, and maintained that even if it were porous there was no reason why the blood should not percolate from the left to the right, as well as from the right to the left ventricle. We have the name of Aranzi enshrined in our anatomical nomenclature. He was the first who showed how carefully the valvular apparatus of the heart was completed by the addition of the little bodies like millet seeds which fill the triangular space that would otherwise have been left vacant by the meeting of the semi-lunar valves which guard the origins of the pulmonary artery and aorta.* 1De humano fœtu liber. Venet., 1571. Ejusdem Anatomicarum observationum Liber, ac de Tumoribus, nunc primum editus. 4to, min. Venet., 1595. 2 "In cordis etiam particulis illud videtur observatione dignum: quod scilicet in medio circumferentiæ janitricum membranarum quæ Aortæ et Venæ arterialis orificii præficiuntur, cartilagineum corpusculum, grani panici imaginem referens, magna ex parte sit oppositum." (Obs. Anat., cap. 33. 2 Arantius also speaks particularly of the valve which guards the orifice of the coronary vein; but he is not in advance of Fabricius of Aquapendente in his appreciation of the valves of the veins in general; their office, according to him, being to secure the heart against refluxes of blood, such as might be apt to occur in consequence of the incessant motion of the organ. RUINI. RUINI (C). Recent Italian writers are by no means agreed among themselves as to which of their countrymen the honour of having discovered the circulation of the blood is to be assigned. They are only at one in this-that it does not belong to Harvey. Professor Ercolani of Genoa, for example, is of opinion that Carlo Ruini, a gentleman of Bologna and an early writer on the veterinary art, anticipated Cesalpino, to whom the majority of his countrymen give the glory. In the school of Veterinary Surgery of Bologna, Ercolani has had a tablet affixed in honour of Ruini, with the following inscription : A CARLO RUINI, SENATORE BOLOGNESE, Che primo l'arte veterinaria scientificò, e primo riveló la Circolazione del Sangue, Questa scuola murata l'anno MDCCCLXIX., Giambatista Ercolani Ruini is known in the Republic of Letters by the handsome volume he published on the "Anatomy and Diseases of the Horse."1 After a somewhat careful perusal of so much of the work as refers to the sanguiniferous system, I am utterly at a loss to imagine on what grounds Ruini could ever have been spoken of as the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. To Ruini the liver is the chief organ in which the blood is engendered. The vena portæ collects nutritive material from the stomach, and brings it to the liver, whence it is distributed to the rest of the body for its nourishment.2 "The Describing the ventricles of the heart, he says: function of these ventricles is specially to qualify the blood, to engender the vital spirit, and to nourish the lungs. Of the left ventricle the duty is to receive the blood already in so far disposed; to convert part of it into spirit, and to send on the remainder with the spirits by the arteries to all parts of the body except the lungs, in order that they may participate in the heat that gives life." A passage which the reader will be at no loss to interpret in conformity with the Galenical physiology of the age. Ruini shows himself well acquainted with the valves of the heart and their action. The auricles he thinks are for the purpose of easing the vena cava and pul 1 Del' Anatomia e delle Malattie del Cavallo. Bologna, 1590. Fol. Of which there is a fine copy in the British Museum. 2 Il fegato, membro principale, nel quale si genera il sangue, de cui tutte l'altre parti si nutriscono. L'officio della vena porta è de portare il nutrimento del ventricolo al fegato, e d'inde per alcune rami distribuirlo per alcune parti del corpo. (Op. cit., p. 142.) monary vein, which would else have withstood indifferently the vigorous attraction and propulsion of the blood by the ventricles. The pulmonary artery, arising from the base of the heart on the right, and the pulmonary vein from the broad part of the heart on the left, Ruini believes are both alike distributed to the lungs; the function of the pulmonary artery being to take the light and spumous blood to them from the right ventricle for their nourishment; that of the pulmonary vein to carry air from them to the heart, and at the same time to conduct away the fuliginous vapours engendered by changes effected in the blood by the air that has been drawn into the left ventricle during its dilatation, this being due to the native heat. The pulmonary vein, has, however, a further office to perform, viz., to supply to the lungs a sufficiency of the subtilized spirituous blood of the left ventricle. The function of the lungs is, as usual, to take in and prepare-but in an arbitrary sort of way-fresh air in quantity sufficient to temper the excessive heat of the heart.1 But all this only shows Ruini on a level with his contemporaries; and when we find that with Galen he has the veins distributing the nutrient blood to the body, it is obvious that he could have had no idea other than of a to-and-fro motion of the nutrient or venous, 1 Si temperi il souverchio suo calore; et habia donde ad ogni suo piacere, possa pigliare l'aere et far le suoi officii. I |