The Works of William Harvey M.D. / Translated from the Latin with a life of the author

by William Harvey

Moreover, as the vessels in question are distributed equally to the albumen and vitellus of the egg, not otherwise than as the roots of trees are connected with the ground, it is obvious that both of these substances must serve for the nutriment of the embryo, and that they are taken up and carried to it by these vessels. But this view is opposed to that of Aristotle, who everywhere maintains that the chick is formed from the albumen, and receives nourishment through the umbilicus alone. The albumen indeed is first consumed, and the yelk serves subsequently for food, supplying the place of the milk, which viviparous animals receive after their birth from their mothers. The food which nature provides for the young of viviparous tribes in the dug of the mother, she supplies in the yelk of the egg to the young of oviparous animals. Whence it happens, that when the albumen is almost wholly consumed, the vitellus still remains nearly entire in the egg, the chick being already perfect and complete; more than this, the yelk is still found in the abdomen of the chick long after its exclusion. Aristotle discovered some on the eighteenth day after the hatching; and I have myself seen a small quantity connected with the intestine at the end of six weeks from that epoch.

Nevertheless, from the yelk (which certainly does not decrease in the same ratio as the albumen whilst the chick is forming) that is taken into the abdomen of the chick, and from the distribution of vessels through its substance, the whole of these collecting into a single trunk which enters the porta of the liver, and doubtless earning that portion of yelk they have absorbed for more perfect elaboration in that viscus—these and other arguments of the like kind force me to say that I cannot do otherwise than admit with Aristotle that the yelk supplies food to the chick, and is analogous to milk.

The whole of the yelk, indeed, does not remain after the fœtus of the fowl is fully formed; for a certain portion of it has been liquefied on the very first appearance of the embryo, and receives branches of vessels no less than the albumen, by which, already prepared, it is carried as nourishment for the chick; still it is certain that the greater portion of the yelk remains after the disappearance of the albumen; that it is laid up in the abdomen of the chick when excluded, and, attracted or absorbed by the branches of the vena portæ, that it is finally carried to the liver.

It is manifest, therefore, that the chick when hatched, is nourished by the yelk in the first period of its independent existence. And as within the egg the embryo was nourished partly by the albumen, partly by the vitellus, but principally by the albumen, which is both present in larger quantity, and is more speedily consumed, so when the chick is hatched, and when all the nourishment that is taken must pass through the liver to undergo ulterior preparation, is it nourished partly by the vitellus and partly by chyle absorbed from the intestines, but principally by chyle, which the host of subdivisions of the mesenteric vessels seize upon, whilst there is but a single vessel from the porta distributed to the vitellus, and by and by but little of it remains. Nature, therefore, acts as does the nurse, who gradually habituates her infant to the food which is to take the place of her failing supply of milk. The pullet is thus gradually brought from food of more easy to food of more difficult digestion,—from yelk to chyle.

Wherefore there is every reason for what we perceive in connexion with the course of the veins in the egg. When the embryo first begins to be formed, they are distributed to the colliquament only, where the blood finds suitable nutriment and matter for the formation of the body; but by and by they extend into the thinner albumen, whence the chick, whilst it is yet in the state of gelatine or mucor, and resembles a maggot in form, derives its increase; the branches next extend into the thicker albumen, and then into the vitellus, that they may also contribute to the support of the fœtus, which, having at length arrived at maturity and been extruded, still preserves a portion of the yelk (or milk) within its abdomen, whereby it is maintained in part, in part by food selected and prepared for it by the mother, until it is able to look out for and to digest its own aliment. Thus does nature most wisely provide food through the whole round of generation, suited to the various strength of the digestive faculty in the future being. In the first period of the fœtal chick’s existence a more delicate food is prepared for it; more advanced, firmer and firmer food is supplied; and this is the reason, I apprehend, wherefore, the perfect egg consists not only of two portions of different colours, but is even provided with two kinds of albumen.

Now all this that we discover from actual experience of the matter accords with the opinion of Aristotle, where he says:[285] “The part which is hot is best adapted to give form to the limbs; that which is more earthy rather conduces to the constitution of the body and is more remote. Wherefore in eggs of two colours, the animal begins to be engendered from the white (for the beginning of animal life is in the hot), and derives its nourishment from the yellow. In the warmer animals, consequently, these parts are kept distinct from one another, viz. that from which the beginning is derived, and that whence the nourishment is obtained, and the one is white, the other yellow.”

From what has now been said it appears that the chick—and we shall show that it is not otherwise in all other animals—arises and is constituted as it were by a principle or soul inherent in the egg, and that in the same way the proper aliment is sought for and is supplied within the egg; whereby it comes that the chick is not dependent on its mother in the same way as plants are dependent on the ground; and it is not more correct to say that the chick is nourished by the blood of its mother, or that its heart beats, and that it lives through the spirits of its parent, than it would be to assert that it moved and felt through the organs, or grew and attained to adult age through the vital principle of its parent. It is manifest, on the contrary, and is allowed by all that the fœtal chick is nourished through its umbilical vessels; and that the vascular ramifications dispersed over the albumen and yelk imbibe nourishment from them and convey it to the fœtus. It is also admitted that the chick, when excluded from the shell, is supplied with nourishment, partly from yelk, partly from chyle, and that in either case the aliment passes by the same route, viz. by the vena portæ into the liver, the branches of this vessel effecting the transit.

It is therefore obvious, as I now say by the way, that the chyle by which all animals are nourished is brought by the mesenteric veins from the intestines; nor is there occasion to look for any new passage—by the lacteal vessels, to wit—or any route in adult animals other than that which we discover in the egg and chick. But we shall recur more fully in another place to the inconveniences of such an opinion as that referred to.

Lastly, from the structure of the umbilical vessels of the chick in ovo, some of which as stated in the history are veins, others arteries, it is legitimate to conclude that there is here a circular motion of the blood, such as we have already demonstrated in the animal body, in our book on the Motion of the Blood, and this for the sake of the nutrition and growth of the embryo, and because the umbilical veins are distributed to either fluid of the egg, that they may thence bring nutriment to the chick, and the arteries accompany the veins, that by their affluxive heat the alimentary matter may be duly concocted, liquefied, and made fit to answer the ends of nutrition.

And hence it happens that wherever veins—and here I would have it understood that both arteries and veins are intended—make their way into the albumen or vitellus, there these fluids look liquefied and different from the rest. For as soon as the branches of the veins shoot forth, the upper portion of the albumen in which they are implanted passing into colliquament, becomes transparent, whilst the lower portion, continuing thick and compact, is pushed into the inferior angle of the egg. In like manner a separation of the vitellus, as it seems into two portions, makes its appearance, the one being superior, and the other inferior, and these do not differ less from one another in character than melted differs from solid wax; now this division corresponds to the two parts which severally receive or do not receive blood-vessels.