Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/233

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Ancient and Modern Learning.
193

would never have said (s)(s) De usu Partium, lib. V. cap. 2. that Nature made it for a Pillow to support the Veins; which go out of the Liver in that Place, where they divide into several Branches, lest if they had been without a Rest, they should have been hurt by the violent Eruption of the Blood; and this too without the assigning any other Use for it.

By Anatomy there is seldom any thing understood but the Art of laying open the several Parts of the Body with a Knife, that so the Relation which they severally bear each to other may be clearly discerned. This is generally understood of the containing Parts, Skin, Flesh, Bones, Membranes, Veins, Arteries, Muscles, Tendons, Ligaments, Cartilages, Glands, Bowels, wherein only the Ancients busied themselves: As for the Examination of the Nature and particular Texture of the contained Parts, Blood, Chyle, Urine, Bile, Serum, Fat, Juices of the Pancreas, Spleen and Nerves, Lympha, Spittle, Marrow of the Bones, Mucilages of the Joints, and the like; they made very few Experiments, and those too for want of Chymistry very imperfect. The Discoveries therefore which have been made in that nobler part, which are numerous and considerable, are in a manner wholly owing to later Ages. In the other, a

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