The Emperor Charles laid siege to the town of Therouenne; and M. le Due de Savoie was General of his whole army. It was taken by assault: and there was a great number of our men killed and taken prisoners.
The King, wishing to prevent the enemy from besieging the town and castle of Hesdin also, sent thither MM. le Duc de Bouillon, le Duc Horace, le Marquis de Villars, and a number of captains, and about eighteen hundred soldiers: and during the siege of Therouenne, these Seigneurs fortified the castle of Hesdin, so that it seemed to be impregnable. The King sent me to the Seigneurs, to help them with my art, if they should come to have need of it.
Soon after the capture of Therouenne, we were besieged in Hesdin. There was a clear stream of running water within shot of our cannon, and about it were fourscore or an hundred of the enemy's rabble, drawing water. I was on a rampart watching the enemy pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot among this canaille: he gave me a flat refusal, saying that all this sort of people was not worth the powder would be wasted on them. Again I begged him to level the cannon, telling him, "The more dead, the fewer enemies;" which he did for my sake: and the shot killed fifteen or sixteen, and wounded many. Our men made sorties against the enemy, wherein many were killed and wounded on both sides, with gunshot or with fighting hand to hand; and our men often sallied out before their trenches were made; so that I had my work cut out for me, and had no rest either day or night for dressing the wounded.
And here I would note that we had put many of them in a great tower, laying them on a little straw: and their pillows were stones, their coverlets were cloaks, those who had any. When the attack was made, so often as the enemy's cannons were fired, our wounded said they felt pain in their wounds, as if you had struck them with a stick: one was crying out on his head, the other on his arm, and so with the other parts of the body: and many had their wounds bleed again, even more profusely than at the time they were wounded, and then I had to run to staunch them. Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, you would have been much hindered with your hot irons; you would have wanted a lot of charcoal to heat them red, and sure you would have been killed like a calf for your cruelty. Many died of the diabolical storm of the echo of these engines of artillery, and the vehement agitation and severe shock of the air acting on their wounds; others because they got no rest for the shouting and crying that were made day and night, and for want of good food, and other things needful for their treatment. Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, no doubt you could have given them jelly, restoratives, gravies, pressed meats, broth, barley-water, almond-milk, blanc-mange, prunes, plums, and other food proper for the sick; but your diet would have been only on paper, and in fact they had nothing but beef of old shrunk cows, seized round Hesdin for our provision, salted and half-cooked, so that he who would eat it must drag at it with his teeth, as birds of prey tear their food. Nor must I forget the linen for dressing their wounds, which was only washed daily and dried at the fire, till it was as hard as parchment: I leave you to think how their wounds could do well. There were four big fat rascally women who had charge to whiten the linen, and were kept at it with the stick; and yet they had not water enough to do it, much less soap. That is how the poor patients died, for want of food and other necessary things.
One day the enemy feigned a general attack, to draw our soldiers into the breach, that they might see what we were like: every man ran thither. We had made a great store of artificial fires to defend the breach; a priest of M. le Duc de Bouillon took a grenade, thinking to throw it at the enemy, and lighted it before he ought: it burst, and set fire to all our store, which was in a house near the breach. This was a terrible disaster for us, because it burned many poor soldiers; it even caught the house, and we had all been burned, but for help given to put it out; there was only one well in the castle with any water in it, and this was almost dry, and we took beer to put it out instead of water; afterward we were in great want of water, and to drink what was left we must strain it through napkins.
The enemy, seeing the explosion and violence of the fires, which made a wonderful flame and thundering, thought we had lit them on purpose to defend the breach, and that we had many more of them. This made them change their minds, to have us some other way than by attack: they dug mines, and sapped the greater part of our walls, till they came near turning our castle altogether upside down; and when the sappers had finished their work, and their artillery was fired, all the castle shook under our feet like an earthquake, to our great astonishment. Moreover, they had levelled five pieces of artillery, which they had placed on a little hillock, so as to have us from behind when we were gone to defend the breach. M. le Duc Horace had a cannonshot on the elbow, which carried off his arm one way and his body the other, before he could say a single word; his death was a great disaster to us, for the high rank that he held in the town. Also M. de Martigues had a gunshot wound which pierced his lungs: I dressed him, as I shall tell hereafter.
Then we asked leave to speak with the enemy; and a trumpet was sent to the Prince of Piedmont, to know what terms he would give us. He answered that all the leaders, such as gentlemen, captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, would be taken prisoners for ransom, and the soldiers would leave the town without their arms; and if we refused this fair and honest offer, we might rest assured they would take us next day, by attack or otherwise.
A council was held, to which I was called, to know if I would sign the surrender of the town; with many captains, gentlemen, and others. I answered it was not possible to hold the town, and I would sign the surrender with my own blood, for the little hope I had we could resist the enemy's forces, and for the great longing I had to be out of this hell and utter torture; for I slept neither night nor day for the great number of the wounded, who were about two hundred. The dead were advanced in putrefaction, piled one upon the other like faggots, and not covered with earth, because we had none. And if I went into a soldier's lodging, there were soldiers waiting for me at the door when I came out, for me to dress others; it was who should have me, and they carried me like the body of a saint, with my feet off the ground, fighting for me. I could not satisfy this great number of wounded: nor had I got what I wanted for their treatment. For it is not enough that the surgeon do his duty toward his patients, but the patient also must do his; and the assistants, and external things, must work together for him: see Hippocrates, Aphorism the First.
Having heard that we were to surrender the place, I knew our business was not prospering; and for fear of being known, I gave a velvet coat, a satin doublet, and a cloak of fine cloth trimmed with velvet, to a soldier; who gave me a bad doublet all torn and ragged with wear, and a frayed leather collar, and a bad hat, and a short cloak; I dirtied the neck of my shirt with water mixed with a little soot, I rubbed my hose with a stone at the knees and over the heels, as though they had been long worn, I did the same to my shoes, till one would have taken me for a chimney- sweep rather than a King's surgeon. I went in this gear to M. de Martigues, and prayed him to arrange I should stop with him to dress him; which he granted very willingly, and was as glad I should be near him as I was myself.
Soon afterward, the commissioners who were to select the prisoners entered the castle, the seventeenth day of July, 1553. They took prisoners MM. le Due de Bouillon, le Marquis de Villars, de Roze, le Baron de Culan, M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, and M. de Martigues; and me with him, because he asked them; and all the gentlemen who they knew could pay ransom, and most of the soldiers and the leaders of companies; so many and such prisoners as they wished. And then the Spanish soldiers entered by the breach, unresisted; our men thought they would keep their faith and agreement that all lives should be spared. They entered the town in a fury to kill, plunder, and ravage everything: they took a few men, hoping to have ransom for them. … If they saw they could not get it, they cruelly put them to death in cold blood. … And they killed them all with daggers, and cut their throats. Such was their great cruelty and treachery; let him trust them who will.
To return to my story: when I was taken from the castle into the town, with M. de Martigues, there was one of M. de Savoie's gentlemen, who asked me if M. de Martigues's wound could be cured. I told him no, that it was incurable: and off he went to tell M. le Due de Savoie. I bethought myself they would send physicians and surgeons to dress M. de Martigues; and I argued within myself if I ought to play the simpleton, and not let myself be known for a surgeon, lest they should keep me to dress their wounded, and in the end I should be found to be the King's surgeon, and they would make me pay a big ransom. On the other hand, I feared, if I did not show I was a surgeon and had dressed M. de Martigues skilfully, they would cut my throat. Forthwith I made up my mind to show them he would not die for want of having been well dressed and nursed.
Soon after, sure enough, there came many gentlemen, with the Emperor's physician, and his surgeon, and those belonging to M. de Savoie, and six other surgeons of his army, to see M. de Martigues's wound, and to know of me how I had dressed and treated it. The Emperor's physician bade me declare the essential nature of the wound, and what I had done for it. And all his assistants kept their ears wide open, to know if the wound were or were not mortal. I commenced my discourse to them, how M. Martigues, looking over the wall to mark those who were sapping it, was shot with an arquebus through the body, and I was called of a sudden to dress him. I found blood coming from his mouth and from his wounds. Moreover, he bad a great difficulty of breathing in and out, and air came whistling from the wounds, so that it would have put out a candle; and he said he had a very great stabbing pain where the bullet had entered. … I withdrew some scales of bone, and put in each wound a tent with a large head, fastened with a thread, lest on inspiration it should be drawn into the cavity of the chest; which has happened with surgeons, to the detriment of the poor wounded; for being fallen in, you cannot get them out; and then they beget corruption, being foreign bodies. The tents were anointed with a preparation of yolk of egg, Venice turpentine, and a little oil of roses. … I put over the wounds a great plaster of diachylum, wherewith I had mixed oil of roses, and vinegar, to avoid inflammation. Then I applied great compresses steeped in oxycrate, and bandaged him, not too tight, that he might breathe easily. Next, I drew five basons of blood from his right arm, considering his youth and his sanguine temperament. … Fever took him, soon after he was wounded, with feebleness of the heart. … His diet was barley- water, prunes with sugar, at other times broth: his drink was a ptisane. He could lie only on his back. … What more shall I say? but that my Lord de Martigues never had an hour's rest after he was wounded. … These things considered, Gentlemen, no other prognosis is possible, save that he will die in a few days, to my great grief.
Having finished my discourse, I dressed him as I was accustomed. When I displayed his wounds, the physicians and surgeons, and other assistants present, knew the truth of what I had said. The physicians, having felt his pulse and seen that the vital forces were depressed and spent, agreed with me that in a few days he would die. Then they all went to the Duc de Savoie, and told him M. de Martigues would die in a short time. He answered them, "Possibly, if he had been well dressed, he might have escaped death." Then they all with one voice said he had been very well dressed and cared for altogether, and it could not be better, and it was impossible to cure him, and his wound was of necessity mortal. Then M. de Savoie was very angry with them, and cried, and asked them again if for certain they all held his case hopeless: they answered, yes.
Then a Spanish impostor came forward, who promised on his life to cure him; and if he did not, they should cut him in an hundred pieces; but he would have no physicians, nor surgeons nor apothecaries with him: and M. le Duc de Savoie forthwith bade the physicians and surgeons not go near M. de Martigues; and sent a gentleman to bid me, under pain of death, not so much as to touch him. Which I promised, and was very glad, for now he would not die under my hands; and the impostor was told to dress him, and to have with him no other physicians or surgeons, but only himself. By and bye he came, and said to M. de Martigues, "Senor Cavallero, M. de Savoie has bid me come and dress your wound. I swear to God, before eight days I will set you on horseback, lance in hand, provided none touch you but I alone. You shall eat and drink whatever you like. I will be dieted instead of you; and you may trust me to perform what I promise. I have cured many who had worse wounds than yours." And the Seigneurs answered him, "God give you His grace for it."
He asked for a shirt of M. de Martigues, and tore it in little strips, which he laid cross-wise, muttering and murmuring certain words over the wounds: having done this much for him, he let him eat and drink all he would, saying he himself would be dieted in his stead; which he did, eating but six prunes and six morsels of bread for dinner, and drinking only beer. Nevertheless, two days later, M. de Martigues died: and my friend the Spaniard, seeing him at the point of death, eclipsed himself, and got away without good-bye to any man. And I believe if he had been caught he would have been hanged and strangled, for the false promise he made to M. le Due de Savoie and many other gentlemen. M. de Martigues died about ten o'clock in the morning; and after dinner M. de Savoie sent the physicians and surgeons, and his apothecary, with a store of drugs to embalm him. They came with many gentlemen and captains of his army.
The Emperor's surgeon came to me, and asked me in a very friendly way to make, the embalmment; which I refused, saying that I was not worthy to carry his instrument-box after him. He begged me again to do it to please him, and that he would be very glad of it…Seeing his kindness, and fearing to displease him, I then decided to show them the anatomist that I was, expounding to them many things, which would here be too long to recite… Our discourse finished, I embalmed the body; and it was placed in a coffin. Then the Emperor's surgeon drew me aside, and told me, if I would stop with him, he would treat me well, and give me a new suit of clothes, and set me on horseback. I gave him many thanks, and said I had no wish to serve any country but my own. Then he told me I was a fool, and if he were a prisoner as I was, he would serve a devil to get his freedom. In the end I told him flat I would not stop with him. The Emperor's physician then went back to M. de Savoie, and explained to him the causes of M. de Martigues' death, and that it was impossible for all the men in the world to have cured him; and assured him again I had done all that was to be done, and besought him to take me into his service; saying much more good of me than there was. He having been persuaded to do this, sent to me one of his stewards, M. du Bouchet, to tell me, if I would serve him, he would use me well; I sent back my very humble thanks, and that I had decided not to take service under any foreigner. When he heard my answer he was very angry, and said I ought to be sent to the galleys.
M. de Vaudeville, Governor of Graveline, and colonel of seventeen ensigns of infantry, asked him to send me to him, to dress an old ulcer on his leg, that he had had for six or seven years. M. de Savoie said he was willing, so far as I was concerned; and if I used the cautery to his leg, it would serve him right. M. de Vaudeville answered, if he saw me trying it, he would have my throat cut. Soon after, he sent for me four German halberdiers of his guard; and I was terrified, for I did not know where they were taking me: they spoke no more French than I German. When I was come to his lodging, he bade me welcome, and said, now I belonged to him; and so soon as I had healed him, he would let me go without ransom. I told him I had no means to pay any ransom. He called his physician and his surgeon-in-ordinary, to show me his leg; and when we had examined it, we withdrew into a room, where I began my discourse to them. … Then the physician left me with the surgeon, and went back to M. de Vaudeville, and said he was sure I could cure him, and told him all I had decided to do; which pleased him vastly. He sent for me, and asked if I thought I could cure him; I said yes, if he were obedient to what was necessary. He promised to do only what I wished and ordered; and so soon as he was healed, he would let me go home without ransom. Then I asked him to make better terms with me, saying it was too long to wait for my liberty: in fifteen days I hoped his ulcer would be less than half its present size, and give no pain; then his own surgeon and physician could finish the cure. He granted this to me. Then I took a piece of paper to measure the size of the ulcer, and gave it to him, and kept another by me; I asked him to keep his promise, when I had done my work; he swore by the faith of a gentleman he would. Then I set myself to dress him properly, after the manner of Galen. … He wished to know if it were true, what I said of Galen, and bade his physician look to it, for he would know it for himself; he had the book put on the table, and found that what I said was true; so the physician was ashamed, and I was glad. Within the fifteen days, it was almost all healed; and I began to feel happy about the compact made between us. He had me to eat and drink at his table, when there were no more great persons than he and I only. He gave me a big red scarf which I must wear; which made me feel something like a dog when they give him a clog, to stop him eating the grapes in the vineyards. His physician and surgeon took me through the camp to visit their wounded; and I took care to observe what our enemy was doing. I found they had no more great cannons, but only twenty-five or thirty field-pieces.
M. de Vaudeville held prisoner M. de Bauge, brother of M. de Martigues who died at Hesdin. M. de Bauge was prisoner at Chateau de La Motte au Bois, belonging to the Emperor; he had been captured at Therouenne by two Spanish soldiers; and M. de Vaudeville, when he saw him there, concluded he must be some gentleman of good family: he made him pull off his stockings, and seeing his clean legs and feet, and his fine white stockings, knew he was one to pay a good ransom. He told the soldiers he would give them thirty crowns down for their prisoner: they agreed gladly, for they had no place to keep him, nor food for him, nor did they know his value: so they gave their man into his hands, and he sent him off at once, guarded by four of his own soldiers, to Chateau de La Motte au Bois, with others of our gentlemen who were prisoners.
M. de Bauge would not tell who he was; and endured much hardship, living on bread and water, with a little straw for his bed. When Hesdin was taken, M. de Vaudeville sent the news of it to him and to the other prisoners, and the list of the killed, and among them M. de Martigues: and when M. de Bauge heard with his own ears his brother was dead, he fell to crying, weeping, and lamentation. His guards asked him why he was so miserable: he told them, for love of M. de Martigues, his brother. When he heard this, the captain of the castle sent straight to tell M. de Vaudeville he had a good prisoner: who was delighted at this, and sent me next day with four soldiers, and his own physician, to the castle, to say that if M. de Bauge would pay him fifteen thousand crowns ransom, he would send him home free: and he asked only the security of two Antwerp merchants that he should name. M. de Vaudeville persuaded me I should commend this offer to his prisoner: that is why he sent me to the castle. He told the captain to treat him well and put him in a room with hangings, and strengthen his guard: and from that time onward they made a great deal of him, at the expense of M. de Vaudeville.
M. de Bauge answered that he could not pay his ransom himself: it depended on M. d' Estampes his uncle, and Mlle. de Bressure his aunt: he had no means to pay such a ransom. I went back with my guards, and gave this answer to M. de Vaudeville; who said, "Possibly he will not get away so cheap": which was true, for they knew who he was. Then the Queen of Hungary and M. le Duc de Savoie sent word to M. de Vaudeville that this mouthful was too big for him, and he must send his prisoner to them (which he did), and he had other prisoners enough without him. The ransom paid was forty thousand crowns, without other expenses.
On my way back to M. de Vaudeville, I passed by Saint Omer, where I saw their great cannons, most of which were fouled and broken. Also I passed by Therouenne, where I saw not one stone left on another, save a vestige of the great church: for the Emperor ordered the country people for five or six leagues round to clear and take away the stones; so that now you may drive a cart over the town: and the same at Hesdin, and no trace of castle and fortress. Such is the evil that wars bring with them.
To return to my story; M. de Vaudeville soon got the better of his ulcer, and was nearly healed: so he let me go, and sent me by a trumpet, with passport, as far as Abbeville. I posted from here, and went to find my master, King Henry, at Aufimon, who received me gladly and with good favour. He sent MM. de Guise, the Constable, and d' Estres, to hear from me the capture of Hesdin; and I made them a true report, and assured them I had seen the great cannons they had taken to Saint Omer: and the King was glad, for he had feared the enemy would come further into France. He gave me two hundred crowns to take me home: and I was thankful to be free, out of this great torment and thunder of the diabolical artillery, and away from the soldiers, blasphemers and deniers of God. I must add that after Hesdin was taken, the King was told I was not killed but taken prisoner. He made M. Goguier, his chief physician, write to my wife that I was living, and she was not to be unhappy, and he would pay my ransom.
After the battle of Saint Quentin, the King sent me to La Fere en Tartenois, to M. le Marechal de Bourdillon, for a passport to M. le Duc de Savoie, that I might go and dress the Constable, who had been badly wounded in the back with a pistol-shot, whereof he was like to die, and remained prisoner in the enemy's hands. But never would M. le Duc de Savoie let me go to him, saying he would not die for want of a surgeon; that he much doubted I would go there only to dress him, and not rather to take some secret information to him; and that he knew I was privy to other things besides surgery, and remembered I had been his prisoner at Hesdin. M. le Marechal told the King of this refusal: who wrote to M. le Marechal, that if Mme. the Constable's Lady would send some quick-witted man of her household I would give him a letter, and had also something to say to him by word of mouth, entrusted to me by the King and by M. le Cardinal de Lorraine. Two days later there came one of the Constable's gentlemen of the bedchamber, with his shirts and other linen, to whom M. le Marechal gave a passport to go to the Constable. I was very glad, and gave him my letter, and instructed him what his master must do now he was prisoner.
I thought, having finished my mission, to return to the King; but M. le Marechal begged me to stop at La Fere with him, to dress a very great number of wounded who had retreated there after the battle, and he would write to the King to explain why I stopped; which I did. Their wounds were very putrid, and full of worms, with gangrene, and corruption; and I had to make free play with the knife to cut off what was corrupt, which was not done without amputation of arms and legs, and also sundry trepannings. They found no store of drugs at La Fere, because the surgeons of the camp had taken them all away; but I found the waggons of the artillery there, and these had not been touched. I asked M. le Marechal to let me have some of the drugs which were in them, which he did; and I was given the half only at one time, and five or six days later I had to take the rest; and yet it was not half enough to dress the great number of wounded. And to correct and stop the corruption, and kill the worms in their wounds, I washed them with Aegyptiacum dissolved in wine and eau-de-vie, and did all I could for them; but in spite of all my care many of them died.
There were at La Fere some gentlemen charged to find the dead body of M. de Bois-Dauphin the elder, who had been killed in the battle; they asked me to go with them to the camp, to pick him out, if we could, among the dead; but it was not possible to recognize him, the bodies being all far gone in corruption, and their faces changed. We saw more than half a league round us the earth all covered with the dead; and hardly stopped there, because of the stench of the dead men and their horses; and so many blue and green flies rose from them, bred of the moisture of the bodies and the heat of the sun, that when they were up in the air they hid the sun. It was wonderful to hear them buzzing; and where they settled, there they infected the air, and brought the plague with them. Mon petit maistre, I wish you had been there with me, to experience the smells, and make report thereof to them that were not there.
I was very weary of the place; I prayed M. le Marechal to let me leave it, and feared I should be ill there; for the wounded men stank past all bearing, and they died nearly all, in spite of everything we did. He got surgeons to finish the treatment of them, and sent me away with his good favour. He wrote to the King of the diligence I had shown toward the poor wounded. Then I returned to Paris, where I found many more gentlemen, who had been wounded and gone thither after the battle.
The King sent me to Dourlan, under conduct of Captain Gouast; with fifty men-at-arms, for fear I should be taken by the enemy; and seeing we were always in alarms on the way, I made my man let down, and made him the master; for I got on his horse, which carried my valise, and could go well if we had to make our escape, and I took his cloak and hat and gave him my mount, which was a good little mare; he being in front, you would have taken him for the master and me for the servant The garrison inside Dourlan, when they saw us, thought we were the enemy, and fired their cannon at us. Captain Gouast, my conductor, made signs to them with his hat that we were not the enemy; at last they ceased firing, and we entered Dourlan, to our great relief.
Five or six days before this, a sortie had been made from Dourlan; wherein many captains and brave soldiers had been killed or wounded: and among the wounded was Captain Saint Aubin, vaillant comme l' espce, a great friend of M. de Guise: for whose sake chiefly the King had sent me there. Who, being attacked with a quartan fever, yet left his bed to command the greater part of his company. A Spaniard, seeing him in command, perceived he was a captain, and shot him through the neck with an arquebus. Captain Saint Aubin thought himself killed; and by this fright I protest to God he lost his quartan fever, and was forever free of it. I dressed him, with Antoine Portail, surgeon-in-ordinary of the King; and many other soldiers. Some died, others got off with the loss of an arm or a leg or an eye, and said they had got off cheap, to be alive at all. Then, the enemy having broken up their camp, I returned to Paris.
I say nothing here of mon petit maistre, who was more comfortable in his house than I at the wars.
The King with his camp was but a short time at Bourges, till those within the walls should surrender; and they came out with their goods saved. I know nothing worth remembering, but that a boy of the King's kitchen, having come near the walls of the town before the agreement had been signed, cried with a loud voice, "Huguenot, Huguenot, shoot here, shoot here," having his arm thrown up and his hand spread out; a soldier shot his hand right through with a bullet. When he was thus shot, he came to find me to dress him. And the Constable seeing the boy in tears, with his hand all bloody, asked who had wounded him: then a gentleman who had seen him shot said it served him right, because he kept calling "Huguenot, hit here, aim here." And then the Constable said, this Huguenot was a good shot and a good fellow, for most likely if he had chosen to fire at the boy's head, he would have hit it even more easily than his hand. I dressed the kitchen boy, who was very ill. He recovered, but with no power in his hand: and from that time his comrades called him "Huguenot": he is still living now.
Now, as for the capture of Rouen, they killed many of our men both before and at the attack: and the very next day after we had entered the town, I trepanned eight or nine of our men, who had been wounded with stones as they were on the breach. The air was so malignant, that many died, even of quite small wounds, so that some thought the bullets had been poisoned; and those within the town said the like of us; for though they had within the town all that was needful, yet all the same they died like those outside.
The King of Navarre was wounded, some days before the attack, with a bullet in the shoulder. I visited him, and helped to dress him, with one of his own surgeons, Master Gilbert, one of the chief men of Montpellier, and others. They could not find the bullet. I searched for it very accurately, and found reason to believe it had entered at the top of the arm, by the head of the bone, and had passed into the hollow part of the bone, which was why they could not find it; and most of them said it had entered his body and was lost in it. M. le Prince de La Roche-sur-Yon, who dearly loved the King of Navarre, drew me aside and asked if the wound were mortal. I told him yes, because all wounds of great joints, and especially contused wounds, were mortal, according to all those who have written about them. He asked the others what they thought of it, and chiefly Master Gilbert, who told him he had great hope his Lord the King would recover; which made the Prince very glad.
Four days later, the King, and the Queen-mother, and M. le Cardinal de Bourbon, his brother, and M. le Prince de la Roche- sur-Yon, and M. de Guise, and other great persons, after we had dressed the King of Navarre, wished us to hold a consultation in their presence, all the physicians and surgeons together. Each of them said what he thought, and there was not one but had good hope, they said, that he would recover. I persisted always in the contrary. M. le Prince, who loved me, drew me aside, and said I was alone against the opinion of all the others, and prayed me not to be obstinate against so many good men. I answered, When I shall see good signs of recovery, I will change my mind. Many consultations were held, and I never changed what I said, and the prognosis I had made at the first dressing, and said always the arm would fall into a gangrene: which it did, for all the care they could give to it; and he rendered his spirit to God the eighteenth day after his wound.
M. le Prince, having heard of it, sent to me his surgeon, and his physician, one Lefevre, now physician-in-ordinary to the King and Queen-mother, to say he wished to have the bullet, and we were to look for it, to see where it was. Then I was very glad, and assured them I should quickly find it; which I did in their presence, with many other gentlemen: it was just in the very middle of the bone. M. le Prince took and showed it to the King and to the Queen, who all said that my prognosis had come true. The body was laid to rest at Chateau Gaillard: and I returned to Paris, where I found many patients, who had been wounded on the breach at Rouen, and chiefly Italians, who were very eager I should dress them: which I did willingly. Many of them recovered: the rest died. Mon petit maistre, I think you were called to dress some, for the great number there was of them.
The day after the battle of Dreux, the King bade me go and dress M. le Comte d'Eu, who had been wounded in the right thigh, near the hip-joint, with a pistol-shot: which had smashed and broken the thigh-bone into many pieces: whereon many accidents supervened, and at last death, to my great grief. The day after I came, I would go to the camp where the battle had been, to see the dead bodies. I saw, for a long league round, the earth all covered: they estimated it at twenty-five thousand men or more; and it was all done in less than two hours. I wish, mon petit maistre, for the love I bear you, you had been there, to tell it to your scholars and your children.
Now while I was at Dreux, I visited and dressed a great number of gentlemen, and poor soldiers, and among the rest many of the Swiss captains. I dressed fourteen all in one room, all wounded with pistol-shots and other diabolical firearms, and not one of the fourteen died. M. le Comte d'Eu being dead, I made no long stay at Dreux. Surgeons came from Paris, who fulfilled their duty to the wounded, as Pigray, Cointeret, Hubert, and others; and I returned to Paris, where I found many wounded gentlemen who had retreated thither after the battle, to have their wounds dressed; and I was not there without seeing many of them.
And I will not omit to tell of the camp at Havre de Grace. When our artillery came before the walls of the town, the English within the walls killed some of our men, and several pioneers who were making gabions. And seeing they were so wounded that there was no hope of curing them, their comrades stripped them, and put them still living inside the gabions, which served to fill them up. When the English saw that they could not withstand our attack, because they were hard hit by sickness, and especially by the plague, they surrendered. The King gave them ships to return to England, very glad to be out of this plague-stricken place. The greater part of them died, and they took the plague to England, and they have not got rid of it since. Captain Sarlabous, master of the camp, was left in garrison, with six ensigns of infantry, who had no fear of the plague; and they were very glad to get into the town, hoping to enjoy themselves there, Mon petit maistre, if you had been there, you would have done as they did.
I went with the King on that journey to Bayonne, when we were two years and more making the tour of well-nigh all this kingdom. And in many towns and villages I was called in consultation over sundry diseases, with the late M. Chapelain, chief physician to the King, and M. Castellan, chief physician to the Queen-mother; honorable men and very learned in medicine and surgery. During this journey, I always inquired of the surgeons if they had noted anything rare in their practices, so that I might learn something new. While I was at Bayonne, two things happened worthy of remark by young surgeons. The first is, I dressed a Spanish gentleman, who had a great and enormous swelling of the throat. He had lately been touched by the deceased King Charles for the king's evil. I opened his swelling. … I left him in the hands of a surgeon of the town, to finish his cure. M. de Fontaine, Knight of the Order of the King, had a severe continued pestilent fever, accompanied with many inflammatory swellings in sundry parts of the body. He had bleeding at the nose for two days, without ceasing, nor could we staunch it: and after this haemorrhage the fever ceased, with much sweating, and by and bye the swellings suppurated, and he was dressed by me, and healed by the grace of God.
As for the battle of Saint Denis, there were many killed on both sides. Our wounded withdrew to Paris to be dressed, with the prisoners they had taken, and I dressed many of them. The King ordered me, at the request of Mme. the Constable's Lady, to go to her house to dress the Constable; who had a pistol-shot in the middle of the spine of his back, whereby at once he lost all feeling and movement in his thighs and legs … because the spinal cord, whence arise the nerves to give feeling and movement to the parts below, was crushed, broken, and torn by the force of the bullet. Also he lost understanding and reason, and in a few days he died. The surgeons of Paris were hard put to it for many days to treat all the wounded. I think, mon petit maistre, you saw some of them. I beseech the great God of victories, that we be never more employed in such misfortune and disaster.
During the battle of Moncontour, King Charles was at Plessis-les- Tours, where he heard the news of the victory. A great number of gentlemen and soldiers retreated into the town and suburbs of Tours, wounded, to be dressed and treated; and the King and the Queen-mother bade me do my duty by them, with other surgeons who were then on duty, as Pigray, du Bois, Portail, and one Siret, a surgeon of Tours, a man well versed in surgery, who was at this time surgeon to the King's brother. And for the multitude of bad cases we had scarce any rest, nor the physicians either.
M. le Comte de Mansfeld, Governor of the Duchy of Luxembourg, Knight of the Order of the King, was severely wounded in the battle, in the left arm, with a pistol-shot which broke a great part of his elbow; and he withdrew to Borgueil near Tours. Then he sent a gentleman to the King, to beg him to send one of his surgeons, to help him of his wound. So they debated which surgeon they should send. M. le Marechal de Montmorency told the King and the Queen that they ought to send him their chief surgeon; and urged that M. de Mansfeld had done much toward the victory.
The King said flat, he would not have me go, and wished me to stop with himself. Then the Queen-mother told him I would but go and come back, and he must remember it was a foreign lord, who had come, at the command of the King of Spain, to help him. then he let me go, provided I came back very soon. So he sent for me, and the Queen-mother with him, and bade me go and find the Lord de Mansfeld, wherever he should be, to do all I could for him to heal his wound. I went to him, with a letter from Their Majesties. When he saw it, he received me with good-will, and forthwith dismissed three or four surgeons who were dressing him; which was to my very great regret, because his wound seemed to me incurable.
Now many gentlemen had retreated to Borgueil, having been wounded: for they knew that M. de Guise was there, who also had been badly wounded with a pistol-shot through the leg, and they were sure that he would have good surgeons to dress him, and would help them, as he is kindly and very generous, and would relieve their wants. This he did with a will, both for their eating and drinking, and for what else they needed: and for my part, they had the comfort and help of my art: some died, others recovered, according to their wounds. M. le Comte Ringrave died, who was shot in the shoulder, like the King of Navarre before Rouen. M. de Bassompierre, colonel of twelve hundred horse, was wounded by a similar shot, in the same place, as M. de Mansfeld: whom I dressed, and God healed. God blessed my work so well, that in three weeks I sent them back to Paris: where I had still to make incisions in M. de Mansfeld's arm, to remove some pieces of the bones, which were badly splintered, broken, and carious. He was healed by the grace of God, and made me a handsome present, so I was well content with him, and he with me; as he has shown me since. He wrote a letter to M. le Duc d' Ascot, how he was healed of his wound, and also M. de Bassompierre of his, and many others whom I had dressed after the battle of Moncontour; and advised him to ask the King of France to let me visit M. le Marquis d' Auret, his brother: which he did.
M. le Duc d' Ascot did not fail to send a gentleman to the King, with a letter humbly asking he would do him so much kindness and honour as to permit and command his chief surgeon to visit M. le Marquis d' Auret, his brother, who had received a gunshot wound near the knee, with fracture of the bone, about seven months ago, and the physicians and surgeons all this time had not been able to heal him. The King sent for me and bade me go and see M. d' Auret, and give him all the help I could, to heal him of his wound. I told him I would employ all the little knowledge it had pleased God to give me.
I went off, escorted by two gentlemen, to the Chateau d' Auret, which is a league and a half from Mons in Hainault, where M. le Marquis was lying. So soon as I had come, I visited him, and told him the King had commanded me to come and see him and dress his wound. He said he was very glad I had come, and was much beholden to the King, who had done him so much honour as to send me to him.
I found him in a high fever, his eyes deep sunken, with a moribund and yellowish face, his tongue dry and parched, and the whole body much wasted and lean, the voice low as of a man very near death: and I found his thigh much inflamed, suppurating, and ulcerated, discharging a greenish and very offensive sanies. I probed it with a silver probe, wherewith I found a large cavity in the middle of the thigh, and others round the knee, sanious and cuniculate: also several scales of bone, some loose, others not. The leg was greatly swelled, and imbued with a pituitous humor … and bent and drawn back. There was a large bedsore; he could rest neither day nor night; and had no appetite to eat, but very thirsty. I was told he often fell into a faintness of the heart, and sometimes as in epilepsy: and often he felt sick, with such trembling he could not carry his hands to his mouth. Seeing and considering all these great complications, and the vital powers thus broken down, truly I was very sorry I had come to him, because it seemed to me there was little hope he would escape death. All the same, to give him courage and good hope, I told him I would soon set him on his legs, by the grace of God, and the help of his physicians and surgeons.
Having seen him, I went a walk in a garden, and prayed God He would show me this grace, that he should recover; and that He would bless our hands and our medicaments, to fight such a complication of diseases. I discussed in my mind the means I must take to do this. They called me to dinner. I came into the kitchen, and there I saw, taken out of a great pot, half a sheep, a quarter of veal, three great pieces of beef, two fowls, and a very big piece of bacon, with abundance of good herbs: then I said to myself that the broth of the pot would be full of juices, and very nourishing.
After dinner, we began our consultation, all the physicians and surgeons together, in the presence of M. le Duc d' Ascot and some gentlemen who were with him. I began to say to the surgeons that I was astonished they had not made incisions in M. le Marquis' thigh, seeing that it was all suppurating, and the thick matter in it very foetid and offensive, showing it had long been pent up there; and that I had found with the probe caries of the bone, and scales of bone, which were already loose. They answered me: "Never would he consent to it"; indeed, it was near two months since they had been able to get leave to put clean sheets on his bed; and one scarce dared touch the coverlet, so great was his pain. Then I said, "To heal him, we must touch something else than the coverlet of his bed." Each said what he thought of the malady of the patient, and in conclusion they all held it hopeless. I told them there was still some hope, because he was young, and God and Nature sometimes do things which seem to physicians and surgeons impossible.
To restore the warmth and nourishment of the body, general frictions must be made with hot cloths, above, below, to right, to left, and around, to draw the blood and the vital spirits from within outward. … For the bedsore, he must be put in a fresh, soft bed, with clean shirt and sheets… Having discoursed of the causes and complications of his malady, I said we must cure them by their contraries; and must first ease the pain, making openings in the thigh to let out the matter. … Secondly, having regard to the great swelling and coldness of the limb, we must apply hot bricks round it, and sprinkle them with a decoction of nerval herbs in wine and vinegar, and wrap them in napkins; and to his feet, an earthenware bottle filled with the decoction, corked, and wrapped in cloths. Then the thigh, and the whole of the leg, must be fomented with a decoction made of sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, flowers of chamomile and melilot, red roses boiled in white wine, with a drying powder made of oak— ashes and a little vinegar and half a handful of salt. … Thirdly, we must apply to the bedsore a large plaster made of the desiccative red ointment and of Unguentum Comitissoe, equal parts, mixed together, to ease his pain and dry the ulcer; and he must have a little pillow of down, to keep all pressure off it. … And for the strengthening of his heart, we must apply over it a refrigerant of oil of waterlilies, ointment of roses, and a little saffron, dissolved in rose-vinegar and treacle, spread on a piece of red cloth. For the syncope, from exhaustion of the natural forces, troubling the brain, he must have good nourishment full of juices, as raw eggs, plums stewed in wine and sugar, broth of the meat of the great pot, whereof I have already spoken; the white meat of fowls, partridges' wings minced small, and other roast meats easy to digest, as veal, kid, pigeons, partridges, thrushes, and the like, with sauce of orange, verjuice, sorrel, sharp pomegranates; or he may have them boiled with good herbs, as lettuce, purslain, chicory, bugloss, marigold, and the like. At night he can take barley-water, with juice of sorrel and of waterlilies, of each two ounces, with four or five grains of opium, and the four cold seeds crushed, of each half an ounce; which is a good nourishing remedy and will make him sleep. His bread to be farmhouse bread, neither too stale nor too fresh. For the great pain in his head, his hair must be cut, and his head rubbed with rose-vinegar just warm, and a double cloth steeped in it and put there; also a forehead-cloth, of oil of roses and water-lilies and poppies, and a little opium and rose-vinegar, with a little camphor, and changed from time to time. Moreover, we must allow him to smell flowers of henbane and water-lilies, bruised with vinegar and rose-water, with a little camphor, all wrapped in a handkerchief, to be held some time to his nose. … And we must make artificial rain, pouring water from some high place into a cauldron, that he may hear the sound of it; by which means sleep shall be provoked on him. As for the contraction of his leg, there is hope of righting it when we have let out the pus and other humors pent up in the thigh, and have rubbed the whole knee with ointment of mallows, and oil of lilies, and a little eau-de-vie, and wrapped it in black wool with the grease left in it; and if we put under the knee a feather pillow doubled, little by little we shall straighten the leg.
This my discourse was well approved by the physicians and surgeons.
The consultation ended, we went back to the patient, and I made three openings in his thigh. … Two or three hours later, I got a bed made near his old one, with fair white sheets on it; then a strong man put him in it, and he was thankful to be taken out of his foul stinking bed. Soon after, he asked to sleep; which he did for near four hours; and everybody in the house began to feel happy, and especially M. le Duc d' Ascot, his brother.
The following days, I made injections, into the depth and cavities of the ulcers, of Aegyptiacum dissolved sometimes in eau-de-vie, other times in wine, I applied compresses to the bottom of the sinuous tracks, to cleanse and dry the soft spongy flesh, and hollow leaden tents, that the sanies might always have a way out; and above them a large plaster of Diacalcitheos dissolved in wine. And I bandaged him so skilfully that he had no pain; and when the pain was gone, the fever began at once to abate. Then I gave him wine to drink moderately tempered with water, knowing it would restore and quicken the vital forces. And all that we agreed in consultation was done in due time and order; and so soon as his pains and fever ceased, he began steadily to amend. He dismissed two of his surgeons, and one of his physicians, so that we were but three with him.
Now I stopped there about two months, not without seeing many patients, both rich and poor, who came to me from three or four leagues round. He gave food and drink to the needy, and commended them all to me, asking me to help them for his sake. I protest I refused not one, and did for them all I could, to his great pleasure. Then, when I saw him beginning to be well, I told him we must have viols and violins, and a buffoon to make him laugh: which he did. In one month, we got him into a chair, and he had himself carried about in his garden and at the door of his chateau, to see everybody passing by.
The villagers of two or three leagues round, now they could have sight of him, came on holidays to sing and dance, men and women, pell-mell for a frolic, rejoiced at his good convalescence, all glad to see him, not without plenty of laughter and plenty to drink. He always gave them a hogshead of beer; and they all drank merrily to his health. And the citizens of Mons in Hainault, and other gentlemen, his neighbours, came to see him for the wonder of it, as a man come out of the grave; and from the time he was well, he was never without company. When one went out, another came in to visit him; his table was always well covered. He was dearly loved both by the nobility and by the common people; as for his generosity, so for his handsome face and his courtesy: with a kind look and a gracious word for everybody, so that all who saw him had perforce to love him.
The chief citizens of Mons came one Saturday, to beg him let me go to Mons, where they wished to entertain me with a banquet, for their love of him. He told them he would urge me to go, which he did; but I said such great honour was not for me, moreover they could not feast me better than he did. Again he urged me, with much affection, to go there, to please him; and I agreed. The next day, they came to fetch me with two carriages: and when we got to Mons, we found the dinner ready, and the chief men of the town, with their ladies, who attended me with great devotion. We sat down to dinner, and they put me at the top of the table, and all drank to me, and to the health of M. le Marquis d'Auret: saying he was happy, and they with him, to have had me to put him on his legs again; and truly the whole company were full of honour and love for him. After dinner, they brought me back to the Chateau d'Auret, where M. le Marquis was awaiting me; who affectionately welcomed me, and would hear what we had done at our banquet; and I told him all the company had drunk many times to his health.
In six weeks he began to stand a little on crutches, and to put on fat and get a good natural colour. He would go to Beaumont, his brother's place; and was taken there in a carrying-chair, by eight men at a time. And the peasants in the villages through which we passed, knowing it was M. le Marquis, fought who should carry him, and would have us drink with them; but it was only beer. Yet I believe if they had possessed wine, even hippocras, they would have given it to us with a will. And all were right glad to see him, and all prayed God for him. When we came to Beaumont, everybody came out to meet us and pay their respects to him, and prayed God bless him and keep him in good health. We came to the chateau, and found there more than fifty gentlemen whom M. le Duc d'Ascot had invited to come and be happy with his brother; and he kept open house three whole days. After dinner, the gentlemen used to tilt at the ring and play with the foils, and were full of joy at the sight of M. d'Auret, for they had heard he would never leave his bed or be healed of his wound. I was always at the upper end of the table, and everybody drank to him and to me, thinking to make me drunk, which they could not; for I drank only as I always do.
A few days later, we went back; and I took my leave of Mdme. la Duchesse d'Ascot, who drew a diamond from her finger, and gave it me in gratitude for my good care of her brother: and the diamond was worth more than fifty crowns. M. d'Auret was ever getting better, and was walking all alone on crutches round his garden. Many times I asked him to let me go back to Paris, telling him his physician and his surgeon could do all that was now wanted for his wound: and to make a beginning to get away from him, I asked him to let me go and see the town of Antwerp. To this he agreed at once, and told his steward to escort me there, with two pages. We passed through Malines and Brussels, where the chief citizens of the town begged us to let them know of it when we returned; for they too wished, like those of Mons, to have a festival for me. I gave them very humble thanks, saying I did not deserve such honour. I was two days and a half seeing the town of Antwerp, where certain merchants, knowing the steward, prayed he would let them have the honour of giving us a dinner or a supper: it was who should have us, and they were all truly glad to hear how well M. d' Auret was doing, and made more of me than I asked.
On my return, I found M. le Marquis enjoying himself: and five or six days later I asked his leave to go, which he gave, said he, with great regret. And he made me a handsome present of great value, and sent me back, with the steward, and two pages, to my house in Paris.
I forgot to say that the Spaniards have since ruined and demolished his Chateau d' Auret, sacked, pillaged, and burned all the houses and villages belonging to him: because he would not be of their wicked party in their assassinations and ruin of the Netherlands.
I have published this Apologia, that all men may know on what footing I have always gone: and sure there is no man so touchy not to take in good part what I have said. For I have but told the truth; and the purport of my discourse is plain for all men to see, and the facts themselves are my guarantee against all calumnies.
William Harvey, whose epoch-making treatise announcing and demonstrating the ejaculation of the blood is here printed, was born at Folkestone, Kent, England, April 1, 1578. He was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; and studied medicine on the Continent, receiving the degree of M.D. from the University of Padua. He took the same degree later at both the English universities. After his return to England he became Fellow of the College of Physicians, physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and Lumleian lecturer at the College of Physicians. It was in this last capacity that he delivered, in 1616, the lectures in which he first gave public notice of his theories on the circulation of the blood. The notes of these lectures are still preserved in the British Museum.
In 1618 Harvey was appointed physician extraordinary to James I, and he remained in close professional relations to the royal family until the close of the Civil War, being present at the battle of Edgehill. By mandate of Charles I, he was, for a short time, Warden of Merton College, Oxford (1645-6), and, when he was too infirm to undertake the duties, he was offered the Presidency of the College of Physicians. He died on June 3, 1657.
Harvey's famous "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus" was published in Latin at Frankfort in 1628. The discovery was received with great interest, and in his own country was accepted at once; on the Continent it won favor more slowly. Before his death, however, the soundness of his views was acknowledged by the medical profession throughout Europe, and "it remains to this day the greatest of the discoveries of physiology, and its whole honor belongs to Harvey."
I have already and repeatedly presented you, my learned friends, with my new views of the motion and function of the heart, in my anatomical lectures; but having now for more than nine years confirmed these views by multiplied demonstrations in your presence, illustrated them by arguments, and freed them from the objections of the most learned and skilful anatomists, I at length yield to the requests, I might say entreaties, of many, and here present them for general consideration in this treatise.
Were not the work indeed presented through you, my learned friends, I should scarce hope that it could come out scatheless and complete; for you have in general been the faithful witnesses of almost all the instances from which I have either collected the truth or confuted error. You have seen my dissections, and at my demonstrations of all that I maintain to be objects of sense, you have been accustomed to stand by and bear me out with your testimony. And as this book alone declares the blood to course and revolve by a new route, very different from the ancient and beaten pathway trodden for so many ages, and illustrated by such a host of learned and distinguished men, I was greatly afraid lest I might be charged with presumption did I lay my work before the public at home, or send it beyond seas for impression, unless I had first proposed the subject to you, had confirmed its conclusions by ocular demonstrations in your presence, had replied to your doubts and objections, and secured the assent and support of our distinguished President. For I was most intimately persuaded, that if I could make good my proposition before you and our College, illustrious by its numerous body of learned individuals, I had less to fear from others. I even ventured to hope that I should have the comfort of finding all that you granted me in your sheer love of truth, conceded by others who were philosophers like yourselves. True philosophers, who are only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as already so thoroughly informed, but that they welcome further information from whomsoever and from wheresoever it may come; nor are they so narrow-minded as to imagine any of the arts or sciences transmitted to us by the ancients, in such a state of forwardness or completeness, that nothing is left for the ingenuity and industry of others. On the contrary, very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity, that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth. But even as they see that the credulous and vain are disposed at the first blush to accept and believe everything that is proposed to them, so do they observe that the dull and unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes, and even deny the light of the noonday sun. They teach us in our course of philosophy to sedulously avoid the fables of the poets and the fancies of the vulgar, as the false conclusions of the sceptics. And then the studious and good and true, never suffer their minds to be warped by the passions of hatred and envy, which unfit men duly to weigh the arguments that are advanced in behalf of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even fairly demonstrated. Neither do they think it unworthy of them to change their opinion if truth and undoubted demonstration require them to do so. They do not esteem it discreditable to desert error, though sanctioned by the highest antiquity, for they know full well that to err, to be deceived, is human; that many things are discovered by accident and that many may be learned indifferently from any quarter, by an old man from a youth, by a person of understanding from one of inferior capacity.
My dear colleagues, I had no purpose to swell this treatise into a large volume by quoting the names and writings of anatomists, or to make a parade of the strength of my memory, the extent of my reading, and the amount of my pains; because I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature; and then because I do not think it right or proper to strive to take from the ancients any honor that is their due, nor yet to dispute with the moderns, and enter into controversy with those who have excelled in anatomy and been my teachers. I would not charge with wilful falsehood any one who was sincerely anxious for truth, nor lay it to any one's door as a crime that he had fallen into error. I avow myself the partisan of truth alone; and I can indeed say that I have used all my endeavours, bestowed all my pains on an attempt to produce something that should be agreeable to the good, profitable to the learned, and useful to letters.
Farewell, most worthy Doctors, And think kindly of yourAnatomist,
As we are about to discuss the motion, action, and use of the heart and arteries, it is imperative on us first to state what has been thought of these things by others in their writings, and what has been held by the vulgar and by tradition, in order that what is true may be confirmed, and what is false set right by dissection, multiplied experience, and accurate observation.
Almost all anatomists, physicians, and philosophers up to the present time have supposed, with Galen, that the object of the pulse was the same as that of respiration, and only differed in one particular, this being conceived to depend on the animal, the respiration on the vital faculty; the two, in all other respects, whether with reference to purpose or to motion, comporting themselves alike. Whence it is affirmed, as by Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, in his book on "Respiration," which has lately appeared, that as the pulsation of the heart and arteries does not suffice for the ventilation and refrigeration of the blood, therefore were the lungs fashioned to surround the heart. From this it appears that whatever has hitherto been said upon the systole and diastole, or on the motion of the heart and arteries, has been said with especial reference to the lungs.
But as the structure and movements of the heart differ from those of the lungs, and the motions of the arteries from those of the chest, so it seems likely that other ends and offices will thence arise, and that the pulsations and uses of the heart, likewise of the arteries, will differ in many respects from the heavings and uses of the chest and lungs. For did the arterial pulse and the respiration serve the same ends; did the arteries in their diastole take air into their cavities, as commonly stated, and in their systole emit fuliginous vapours by the same pores of the flesh and skin; and further, did they, in the time intermediate between the diastole and the systole, contain air, and at all times either air or spirits, or fuliginous vapours, what should then be said to Galen, who wrote a book on purpose to show that by nature the arteries contained blood, and nothing but blood, and consequently neither spirits nor air, as may readily be gathered from the experiments and reasonings contained in the same book? Now, if the arteries are filled in the diastole with air then taken into them (a larger quantity of air penetrating when the pulse is large and full), it must come to pass that if you plunge into a bath of water or of oil when the pulse is strong and full, it ought forthwith to become either smaller or much slower, since the circumambient bath will render it either difficult or impossible for the air to penetrate. In like manner, as all the arteries, those that are deep-seated as well as those that are superficial, are dilated at the same instant and with the same rapidity, how is it possible that air should penetrate to the deeper parts as freely and quickly through the skin, flesh, and other structures, as through the cuticle alone? And how should the arteries of the foetus draw air into their cavities through the abdomen of the mother and the body of the womb? And how should seals, whales, dolphins, and other cetaceans, and fishes of every description, living in the depths of the sea, take in and emit air by the diastole and systole of their arteries through the infinite mass of water? For to say that they absorb the air that is present in the water, and emit their fumes into this medium, were to utter something like a figment. And if the arteries in their systole expel fuliginous vapours from their cavities through the pores of the flesh and skin, why not the spirits, which are said to be contained in those vessels, at the same time, since spirits are much more subtile than fuliginous vapours or smoke? And if the arteries take in and cast out air in the systole and diastole, like the lungs in the process of respiration, why do they not do the same thing when a wound is made in one of them, as in the operation of arteriotomy? When the windpipe is divided, it is sufficiently obvious that the air enters and returns through the wound by two opposite movements; but when an artery is divided, it is equally manifest that blood escapes in one continuous stream, and that no air either enters or issues. If the pulsations of the arteries fan and refrigerate the several parts of the body as the lungs do the heart, how comes it, as is commonly said, that the arteries carry the vital blood into the different parts, abundantly charged with vital spirits, which cherish the heat of these parts, sustain them when asleep, and recruit them when exhausted? How should it happen that, if you tie the arteries, immediately the parts not only become torpid, and frigid, and look pale, but at length cease even to be nourished? This, according to Galen, is because they are deprived of the heat which flowed through all parts from the heart, as its source; whence it would appear that the arteries rather carry warmth to the parts than serve for any fanning or refrigeration. Besides, how can their diastole draw spirits from the heart to warm the body and its parts, and means of cooling them from without? Still further, although some affirm that the lungs, arteries, and heart have all the same offices, they yet maintain that the heart is the workshop of the spirits, and that the arteries contain and transmit them; denying, however, in opposition to the opinion of Columbus, that the lungs can either make or contain spirits. They then assert, with Galen, against Erasistratus, that it is the blood, not spirits, which is contained in the arteries.
These opinions are seen to be so incongruous and mutually subversive, that every one of them is justly brought under suspicion. That it is blood and blood alone which is contained in the arteries is made manifest by the experiment of Galen, by arteriotomy, and by wounds; for from a single divided artery, as Galen himself affirms in more than one place, the whole of the blood may be withdrawn in the course of half an hour or less. The experiment of Galen alluded to is this: "If you include a portion of an artery between two ligatures, and slit it open lengthwise you will find nothing but blood"; and thus he proves that the arteries contain only blood. And we too may be permitted to proceed by a like train of reasoning: if we find the same blood in the arteries as in the veins, after having tied them in the same way, as I have myself repeatedly ascertained, both in the dead body and in living animals, we may fairly conclude that the arteries contain the same blood as the veins, and nothing but the same blood. Some, whilst they attempt to lessen the difficulty, affirm that the blood is spirituous and arterious, and virtually concede that the office of the arteries is to carry blood from the heart into the whole of the body, and that they are therefore filled with blood; for spirituous blood is not the less blood on that account. And no one denies the blood as such, even the portion of it which flows in the veins, is imbued with spirits. But if that portion of it which is contained in the arteries be richer in spirits, it is still to be believed that these spirits are inseparable from the blood, like those in the veins; that the blood and spirits constitute one body (like whey and butter in milk, or heat in hot water), with which the arteries are charged, and for the distribution of which from the heart they are provided. This body is nothing else than blood. But if this blood be said to be drawn from the heart into the arteries by the diastole of these vessels, it is then assumed that the arteries by their distension are filled with blood, and not with the surrounding air, as heretofore; for if they be said also to become filled with air from the ambient atmosphere, how and when, I ask, can they receive blood from the heart? If it be answered: during the systole, I take it to be impossible: the arteries would then have to fill while they contracted, to fill, and yet not become distended. But if it be said: during diastole, they would then, and for two opposite purposes, be receiving both blood and air, and heat and cold, which is improbable. Further when it is affirmed that the diastole of the heart and arteries is simultaneous, and the systole of the two is also concurrent, there is another incongruity. For how can two bodies mutually connected, which are simultaneously distended, attract or draw anything from one another? or being simultaneously contracted, receive anything from each other? And then it seems impossible that one body can thus attract another body into itself, so as to become distended, seeing that to be distended is to be passive, unless, in the manner of a sponge, which has been previously compressed by an external force, it is returning to its natural state. But it is difficult to conceive that there can be anything of this kind in the arteries. The arteries dilate, because they are filled like bladders or leathern bottles; they are not filled because they expand like bellows. This I think easy of demonstration, and indeed conceive that I have already proved it. Nevertheless, in that book of Galen headed "Quod Sanguis continetur in Arterus," he quotes an experiment to prove the contrary. An artery having been exposed, is opened longitudinally, and a reed or other pervious tube is inserted into the vessel through the opening, by which the blood is prevented from being lost, and the wound is closed. "So long," he says, "as things are thus arranged, the whole artery will pulsate; but if you now throw a ligature about the vessel and tightly compress its wall over the tube, you will no longer see the artery beating beyond the ligature." I have never performed this experiment of Galen's nor do I think that it could very well be performed in the living body, on account of the profuse flow of blood that would take place from the vessel that was operated on; neither would the tube effectually close the wound in the vessel without a ligature; and I cannot doubt but that the blood would be found to flow out between the tube and the vessel. Still Galen appears by this experiment to prove both that the pulsative property extends from the heart by the walls of the arteries, and that the arteries, whilst they dilate, are filled by that pulsific force, because they expand like bellows, and do not dilate as if they are filled like skins, But the contrary is obvious in arteriotomy and in wounds; for the blood spurting from the arteries escapes with force, now farther, now not so far, alternately, or in jets; and the jet always takes place with the diastole of the artery, never with the systole. By which it clearly appears that the artery is dilated with the impulse of the blood; for of itself it would not throw the blood to such a distance and whilst it was dilating; it ought rather to draw air into its cavity through the wound, were those things true that are commonly stated concerning the uses of the arteries. Do not let the thickness of the arterial tunics impose upon us, and lead us to conclude that the pulsative property proceeds along them from the heart For in several animals the arteries do not apparently differ from the veins; and in extreme parts of the body where the arteries are minutely subdivided, as in the brain, the hand, etc., no one could distinguish the arteries from the veins by the dissimilar characters of their coats: the tunics of both are identical. And then, in the aneurism proceeding from a wounded or eroded artery, the pulsation is precisely the same as in the other arteries, and yet it has no proper arterial covering. To this the learned Riolanus testifies along with me, in his Seventh Book.
Nor let any one imagine that the uses of the pulse and the respiration are the same, because, under the influences of the same causes, such as running, anger, the warm bath, or any other heating thing, as Galen says, they become more frequent and forcible together. For not only is experience in opposition to this idea, though Galen endeavours to explain it away, when we see that with excessive repletion the pulse beats more forcibly, whilst the respiration is diminished in amount;, but in young persons the pulse is quick, whilst respiration is slow. So it is also in alarm, and amidst care, and under anxiety of mind; sometimes, too, in fevers, the pulse is rapid, but the respiration is slower than usual.
These and other objections of the same kind may be urged against the opinions mentioned. Nor are the views that are entertained of the offices and pulse of the heart, perhaps, less bound up with great and most inextricable difficulties. The heart, it is vulgarly said, is the fountain and workshop of the vital spirits, the centre from which life is dispensed to the several parts of the body. Yet it is denied that the right ventricle makes spirits, which is rather held to supply nourishment to the lungs. For these reasons it is maintained that fishes are without any right ventricle (and indeed every animal wants a right ventricle which is unfurnished with lungs), and that the right ventricle is present solely for the sake of the lungs.