The Hippocratic treatise On Anatomy

Classical Quarterly

Volumn 48, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 135-167

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Author keywords

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Indexed keywords

ABDOMEN; ANATOMY; ARTICLE; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; HISTOLOGY; HISTORY; HUMAN; THORAX;

ABDOMEN; ANATOMY; GREEK WORLD; HISTORY, ANCIENT; HUMANS; THORAX;

EID: 33644872794     PISSN: 00098388     EISSN: 14716844     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cq/48.1.135     Document Type: Article

References (3)

1. Triller's interpretation (above n. 14.3) has some such rationale: the umbilical vein by which 'revera infantis corpusculum nutritur' could readily be associated with the portal vein. However, Triller does not totally exclude the vena cava in this connection; and the latter is rendered likely by the fact that the course of blood from placenta is through umbilical vein to ductus venosus to inferior vena cava; before, at birth, the ductus venosus collapses with the collapse of the umbilical vein; see C. W. F. Burnett, The Anatomy and Physiology of Obstetrics (London, 1953), pp. 129-34. It is not impossible that there was some observation of this if the aborted foetus was examined (though observation of the ductus venosus is not recorded until the sixteenth century)
2. The interpretation is commended by A. von Haller, Bibliotheca Anatomica (Zurich, 1774-7), vol. 1, p. 20. Triller's emendation of to is not necessary; though it would render the animal sense certain rather than probable
3. but on the sources of D.L. see the sceptical remarks of W. K. C. Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 1965), vol. II, p. 388, n. 1