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On the Nature of Man
Nemesius of Emesa, tr. Wither, 1636
24. I. Of the pulses, and of their offices.
The motion of the Pulses is called a vitall power: For, having beginning from the heart (and especially from the left portion thereof, which is called the place of the spirits) it distributes unto every part of the body, an ingraffed and a vitall-heat, by meanes of the arteries; even as the liver distributes food by the veines.
If therefore the heart be inflamed above the due measure which nature doth require; the intire living-creature is forthwith brought into an unnaturall heat: and is in like maner cooled, if the heart be cooled beyond a just proportion; because the vitall-spirit is dispersed from the heart by the arteries, into every part of the body.
IIFor it is ordered in such maner, that (for the most part) these three; the veine, the artery, and the sinew, bee so divided, that they goe all together, proceeding from the three principall parts, which governe the intire living-creature.
From the braine, which is the fountaine both of motion and of sense, proceeds the sinew. From the liver, which yeeldeth a beginning to the blood, and the nourishing-faculty, comes the veine, which is the vessell wherein the blood is caried. And from the heart, which is the root of our vitall-faculty, comes the artery, which is that vessell wherein the spirits are conveyed.
These three accompany IIIone another, and receive profit and assistance each from other. For the veine administers a certaine nourishment of blood to the sinew, and to the artery. The artery imparts naturall heat, and vitall spirits to the veine, and therefore it is not possible to finde either an artery altogether voide of a thin kinde of blood: or a veine without spirits, of a vapoury nature.
The artery is forcibly opened and contracted againe, with a certain harmony and proportion; having the beginning of that motion from the heart. And when it is opened, it sucks and draws a thin kinde of blood, from the veines that are neare unto it; which blood being resolved into exhalations, becommeth a nourishment to the vitall-spirits: when it is closed againe, it empties the sowltry heat which is in it, by certaine invisible pores, throughout the body; even as the heart sends from it selfe, the sowltry heat which oppresseth it, by evaporations, both at the nostrills, and the mouth.