Aristotle THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

128 pages - You are on Page 74

Part 4

And in like manner the parts of the lesser one of the two chief blood-vessels, designated the aorta, branch off, accompanying the branches from the big vein; only that, in regard to the aorta, the passages are less in size, and the branches very considerably less than are those of the great vein. So much for the veins as observed in the regions above the heart.

The part of the great vein that lies underneath the heart extends, freely suspended, right through the midriff, and is united both to the aorta and the backbone by slack membranous communications. From it one vein, short and wide, extends through the liver, and from it a number of minute veins branch off into the liver and disappear. From the vein that passes through the liver two branches separate off, of which one terminates in the diaphragm or so-called midriff, and the other runs up again through the armpit into the right arm and unites with the other veins at the inside of the bend of the arm; and it is in consequence of this local connexion that, when the surgeon opens this vein in the forearm, the patient is relieved of certain pains in the liver; and from the left-hand side of it there extends a short but thick vein to the spleen and the little veins branching off it disappear in that organ. Another part branches off from the left-hand side of the great vein, and ascends, by a course similar to the course recently described, into the left arm; only that the ascending vein in the one case is the vein that traverses the liver, while in this case it is distinct from the vein that runs into the spleen. Again, other veins branch off from the big vein; one to the omentum, and another to the pancreas, from which vein run a number of veins through the mesentery. All these veins coalesce in a single large vein, along the entire gut and stomach to the oesophagus; about these parts there is a great ramification of branch veins.

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