These were the first four fundamental facts which
really opened the way for the discovery of the circulation, as it did
away with the belief that the heart in its motion attracts blood into
the ventricles, stating on the contrary that by its contraction it
expelled the blood and only received it during its period of repose or
relaxation. Then he proceeded to study the action of the arteries and
showed that their period of diastole, or expansion, corresponded with
the systole, or contraction, of the heart, and that the arterial pulse
follows the force, frequency and rhythm of the ventricle and is, in
fact, dependent upon it. Here was another new fact: that the pulsation
in the arteries was nothing else than the impulse of the blood within
them. Chapter IV, in which he describes the movements of the auricles
and ventricles, is a model of accurate description, to which little has
since been added. It is interesting to note that he mentions what is
probably auricular fibrillation. He says: "After the heart had ceased
pulsating an undulation or palpitation remained in the blood itself
which was contained in the right auricle, this being observed so long as
it was imbued with heat and spirit." He recognized too the importance of
the auricles as the first to move and the last to die.
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