by a special canal to the aorta, and from the right side of the heart to the left by an open orifice between the auricles. The foetus had as yet no independent existence, it lived exclusively through the life of the mother and had no soul of its own. Born and beginning to breathe, however, the lungs, following the heave of the chest, expanded, and a passage being thereby opened through their substance from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein, with consequent exposure of the blood to the life-giving air, the vital spirit was engendered and the soul of the child acquired. The current which now poured into the left auricle and ventricle by the pulmonary vein, counterbalancing that which had hitherto flowed into the right side of the heart, the membrane which had guarded the orifice of the pulmonary vein was brought into contact with the sides of the foramen ovale, thus closing it, and the flow from the right side of the heart to the left by way of the lungs was established.

Servetus's physiology of the pulmonary transit left nothing to be added by successors. It was complete. The little he says on the transfusion from the systemic ventricle to the aorta and arteries of the body is as old as Galen. A flow of blood, when it was not of spirit, from the heart to the arteries, had ever been held by anatomists to be even as necessary to impart heat and vital endowment to the parts, as the flow by the veins from the liver to minister to their maintenance and nutrition.

So much said makes it unnecessary for me to insist on the indefeasible title of Servetus to rank as the physiological genius of his age; and, from what I have still to say of the great anatomists who came after him, to conclude that he was also the most legitimate predecessor of Harvey. It is only of late that all that physiology owes to Servetus has been adequately acknowledged, and it is encouraging to learn that his native country, Spain, has now shown herself not unmindful of what is due to him as a physiologist.

In the addresses delivered at the opening of the Anthropological Museum of Madrid, founded by Doctor Pedro Gonzales de Velasco, Servetus is rightfully credited with having proclaimed the way in which the blood reaches the left from the right side of the heart by passing through the lungs; and his terrible and undeserved death at Geneva is not forgotten. Servetus," says Dr. Angel-y-Pulido, the orator on the occasion, "first proclaimed the passage of the blood from the heart through the lungs, and like other mighty geniuses who have suffered for their discoveries, died, nobly resolute, at the stake.' But we now see his statue, along with that of another

1" Discursos leidos en la Apertura de Museo Antropologico y Escuola libera del Dr. Velasco, por el Doctor Angel-y-Pulido, y el Dr. Pedro Gonzales de Velasco, Fundator del mismo." Madrid, 1875.

2 "Servet, perecer con noble altivez en la hoguera, despues de haber sorprendido el camino que braza la sangre desde el corazon á los pulmones, y otros eminentes génios sufrir amargas penas como premio á sus grandes descubrimientos."

great man, set as illustrious sentinels beneath the portico of our Institute."

The statue on the right is that of Servetus; on the left it is that of Vales, physician to Philip II., who is characterized as "el divino."

The Anthropological Museum of Madrid, let me take occasion to say, was founded by Dr. Pedro Gonzales Velasco, at his sole expense, and dedicated to the memory of his only daughter, whom he lost, to his ineffable grief, when she had just budded into womanhood, and was the very light of his life. I add the touching words in which he alludes to his irreparable loss, dimmed though they must needs be by translation. "My principal object," says Dr. Velasco, "in addressing you in these critical moments of my life, is to express to you the immense happiness, the measureless delight, which now inspires me at seeing realized the ideal for which I have striven these many, many years. Nor will the feeling, I trust, be thought extravagant that leads me to associate with this day and hour the memory of an angel of tenderness and of love, a messenger from heaven, lent by God to lighten the sorrows of this weary life, whom cruel death tore from my arms in days when her caresses were most needful to me-the daughter of my heart, whose image is ever present with me, whose spirit hovers by my side, whose winning smile I still seem to see, but whose kiss the poor bereaved worker for science no longer feels upon his cheek, and whose sweet voice no longer stirs his soul as in days gone by-days that will never be effaced from his mind." (Discurso del Dr. Pedro Gonzales de Velasco, leido en la Apertura del Museo Antropologico. Madrid, 1875. 4to.)

COLUMBUS.

COLUMBUS (REALDUS)' was born at Cremona. He filled the chair of anatomy after Vesalius, in the University of Padua, and died at Rome, in 1577. The year of his birth is uncertain. To this distinguished anatomist, following Galen, the liver is the head, fount, origin, and root of all the veins-est igitur jecur omnium venarum caput, fons, origo, et radix. It is, as it were, the king of the abdomen, its function being to generate the blood-est sanguificatione dicatum, neque alibi sanguis gignitur. It is mainly composed of veins with some arteries intermixed, and may be characterized as a mass of coagulated blood.

The distribution of the vena portæ is particularly described; the peculiar arrangement there conspicuous having for its object the supply of the stomach, spleen, omentum and intestines with nutrient blood - huc vero nisi sunt hi venarum rami ut illorum sanguine nutrientur ventriculus, lien, omentum, &c. The vena porta, however, not only furnishes the abdominal viscera with nourishment, but is the channel by which

1 1 De Re Anatomica, libri xv. Venet., 1559. Folio.

the natural blood is transmitted to the vena cava for distribution to the body generally. It has the further duty imposed on it of bringing chyle from the intestines to be elaborated into blood by the liver. The motion of the blood in the vena portæ must therefore have been imagined to be of a to-and-fro kind, precisely as it was within the vena cava.

The vena cava, on entering the thorax, sends two branches to the diaphragm, and one-the coronary vein--to the heart, before communicating with the right ventricle. Passing above the level of the lungs, the vena azygos is thrown off to carry nourishment to the parts to which its branches are distributed— partium earum nutriendarum gratia (lib. vi.)

Proceeding to speak of the heart and arteries, Columbus says that the heart is by no means to be reckoned among the number of the muscles-nullo autem pacto potest Cor inter musculos connumerari. It is completely encircled by the coronary vein in order that it may be duly nourished; and the vein is accompanied by an artery, to the end that its substance may be vivified by the vital heat thereby conveyed to it-ut ejus ope substantia vitali calore vivificetur—an arrangement, he goes on to say, which has led some on good grounds to conclude that the vital spirit was engendered in the lung rather than in the heart. It is not unimportant here to ask who had said so? No one, except Servetus. Describing the ventricles particularly, the right, he says, is the one