ARTICLE SECOND.
SITUATION, FORMS, AND GENERAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE VASCULAR SYSTEM OF RED BLOOD.
From the general idea that we have given of the two vascular systems, we should form the following of the position in the economy of that with red blood.
1st. The capillary system of the lungs gives rise to many minute ramifications, which soon unite into small branches, then into larger ones, and finally into four great trunks, two for each lung. These trunks open into the left auricle towards its superior part. 2d. This, distinguished from the right by having fewer fleshy columns, by its smaller size, by the greater elongation of its appendix, which is narrower than that of the other, &c. communicates by an oval opening furnished with valves, with the left ventricle, the thickness of whose parietes, the arrangement of the fleshy columns, &c. distinguish it from the right. 3d. From this ventricle goes the aorta, the common trunk whence arise all those that carry red blood to all the parts, where they terminate in the general capillary system.
The first tree of the system of red blood, the trunk of the second and the heart that serves to unite them, are found then concentrated in the cavity of the thorax, whilst the branches of the second trunk are distributed among all the organs of the economy, and even to all its extremities.
It is nearly between the superior third of the body and the inferior, that is found the agent of impulse of the red blood, or the heart. This position is important; it places under a more immediate influence of this viscus, the superior parts, the head especially, all of whose organs, and particularly the brain, require inevitably a very active and habitual excitement from the blood, in order to keep their functions in permanent activity. Thus observe, that in the gangrene of old people, and the affections that arise from the blood not being driven with sufficient force to all the parts, it is the extremity of the foot that is first affected, and that of the head and the hands become much later the seat of mortification. In general, there are many differences between the phenomena that take place in the superior parts, and those that happen in the inferior. We shall see in the dermoid system, that the portion of the general capillary system which belongs to the first, is penetrated with blood with infinitely more ease, than the portion belonging to the inferior parts, as asphyxia, apoplexy, submersion, different cutaneous eruptions, injections even prove, which in young subjects blacken rather the face than the inferior parts; now this difference arises evidently from the relation of position of the superior and inferior parts with the heart.
We have no general remarks to offer here upon the first tree and upon the agent of impulse of the circulation of red blood. In fact, the remarks belonging to the lungs and the heart will be given in the Descriptive Anatomy. It is then especially the second or arterial tree, whose distribution is now to occupy us. It is necessary in this article to examine the origin, course and termination of it.
I. Origin of the Arteries.
This article comprehends the origin of the aorta at the left ventricle, that of the trunks which arise from it, then that of the branches, the smaller ones and the minute ramifications that go from them.