[Circulation of the Blood]
The ancients attributed to the blood the same motion of ascent and descent which really takes place in the sap of trees. Servetus discovered the minor circulation from the heart to the lungs. Do not the following passages of Giordano Bruno (published in 1591) seem to imply more? I put the question, pauperis forma, with unfeigned diffidence.
"De Immenso et Innumerabili," lib. vi. cap. 8:
Ut in nostro corpore sanguis per totum circumcursat et recursat, sic in toto mundo, astro, tellure.
Quare non aliter quam nostro in corpore sanguis Hinc meat, hinc remeat, neque ad inferiora fluit vi Majore, ad supera a pedibus quam deinde recedat:
and still more plainly, in the ninth chapter of the same book,
Quid esset Quodam ni gyro naturae cuncta redirent Ortus ad proprios rursum; si sorbeat omnes Pontus aquas, totum non restituatque perenni Ordine; qua possit rerum consistere vita? Tanquam si totus concurrat sanguis in unam, In qua consistat, partem, nec prima revisat Ordia, et antiquos cursus non inde resumat.
It is affirmed in the
Supplement to the Scotch Encyclopædia Britannica,
that Des Cartes was the first who in defiance of Aristotle and the Schools, attributed infinity to the universe. The very title of Bruno's poem proves, that this honour belongs to him.
Feyjoo lays claim to a knowledge of the circulation of the blood for Francisco de la Reyna, a farrier, who published a work upon his own art at Burgos, in 1564. The passage which he quotes is perfectly clear.