Note 648 — Chapter XXVI

The leading passage in Columbus (De Re Anatomica, lib. vii., p. 177, edit. 1559), which I have not found quoted by Portal or Sprengel, is as follows: Inter hos ventriculos septum adest, per quod fere omnes existimant sanguini a dextro ventriculo ad sinistrum aditum patefieri; id ut fieret facilius, in transitu ob vitalium spirituum generationem demum reddi; sed longa errant via; nam sanguis per arteriosam venam ad pulmonem fertur; ibique attenuatur; deinde cum aere una per arteriam venalem ad sinistrum cordis ventriculum defertur; quod nemo hactenus aut animadvertit aut scriptum reliquit; licet maximè et ab omnibus animadvertendum. He afterwards makes a remark, in which Servetus had preceded him, that the size of the pulmonary artery (vena arteriosa) is greater than would be required for the nutrition of the lungs alone. Whether he knew of the passages in Servetus or no, notwithstanding his claim of originality is not perhaps manifest: the coincidence as to the function of the lungs in aerating the blood is remarkable; but, if Columbus had any direct knowledge of the Christianismi Restitutio, he did not choose to follow it in the remarkable discovery that there is no perforation in the septum between the ventricles.