LETTERS
LETTERS
LETTER I
To Caspar Hofmann, M.D. Published at Nurenberg, in the “Spicilegium Illustrium Epistolarum ad Casp. Hofmannum.”
Your opinion of me, my most learned Hofmann, so candidly given, and of the motion and circulation of the blood, is extremely gratifying to me; and I rejoice that I have been permitted to see and to converse with a man so learned as yourself, whose friendship I as readily embrace as I cordially return it. But I find that you have been pleased first elaborately to inculpate me, and then to make me pay the penalty, as having seemed to you “to have impeached and condemned Nature of folly and error; and to have imputed to her the character of a most clumsy and inefficient artificer, in suffering the blood to become recrudescent, and making it return again and again to the heart in order to be reconcocted, to grow effete as often in the general system; thus uselessly spoiling the perfectly-made blood, merely to find her in something to do.” But where or when anything of the kind was ever said, or even imagined by me—by me, who, on the contrary, have never lost an opportunity of expressing my admiration of the wisdom and aptness and industry of Nature,—as you do not say, I am not a little disturbed to find such things charged upon me by a man of sober judgment like yourself. In my printed book, I do, indeed, assert that the blood is incessantly moving out from the heart by the arteries to the general system, and returning from this by the veins back to the heart, and with such an ebb and flow, in such mass and quantity that it must necessarily move in some way in a circuit. But if you will be kind enough to refer to my eighth and ninth chapters you will find it stated in so many words that I have purposely omitted to speak of the concoction of the blood, and of the causes of this motion and circulation, especially of the final cause. So much I have been anxious to say, that I might purge myself in the eyes of a learned and much respected man,—that I might feel absolved of the infamy of meriting such censure. And I beg you to observe, my learned, my impartial friend, if you would see with your own eyes the things I affirm in respect of the circulation,—and this is the course which most beseems an anatomist,—that I engage to comply with your wishes, whenever a fit opportunity is afforded; but if you either decline this, or care not by dissection to investigate the subject for yourself, let me beseech you, I say, not to vilipend the industry of others, nor charge it to them as a crime; do not derogate from the faith of an honest man, not altogether foolish nor insane, who has had experience in such matters for a long series of years.
Farewell, and beware! and act by me, as I have done by you; for what you have written I receive as uttered in all candour and kindness. Be sure, in writing to me in return, that you are animated by the same sentiments.
Nürnberg, May 20th, 1636.
LETTER II
To Paul Marquard Slegel, of Hamburg
I congratulate you much, most learned sir, on your excellent commentary, in which you have replied in a very admirable manner to Riolanus, the distinguished anatomist, and, as you say, formerly your teacher: invincible truth has, indeed, taught the scholar to vanquish the master. I was myself preparing a sponge for his most recent arguments; but intent upon my work “On the Generation of Animals” (which, but just come forth, I send to you), I have not had leisure to produce it. And now I rather rejoice in the silence, as from your supplement I perceive that it has led you to come forward with your excellent reflections, to the common advantage of the world of letters. For I see that in your most ornate book (I speak without flattery), you have skilfully and nervously confuted all his machinations against the circulation, and successfully thrown down the scaffolding of his more recent opinions. I am, therefore, but little solicitous about labouring at any ulterior answer. Many things might, indeed, be adduced in confirmation of the truth, and several calculated to shed clearer light on the art of medicine; but of these we shall perhaps see further by and by.