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MEDICAL TEACHING IN ROME. 105
endeavoured to investigate the act of breathing and
the action of the heart. In animals he divided the spinal
cord, the intercostal muscles or their nerves, and removed
certain ribs* in order to see what changes were caused
by this proceeding, in the respiration. In this way he found
that in quiet breathing the diaphragm plays the principal
part and that the intercostal muscles only take part in
forcible respiration.f He observed the movements of the
heart in animals after the thoracic cavity had been opened ;
he also once had the same opportunity in the case of a boy
whose heart had been laid bare by a penetrating wound of
the thorax. J By means of numerous total or partial
divisions of the spinal cord and of different nerves and
by slicing the brain in layers, which operations he carried
out on pigs, he hoped to discover the physiological
significance of these organs.§ The results which he
obtained and which he minutely describes may not have
answered his expectations, but these attempts deserve full
recognition, for they were the first of the kind and pointed
out the right method by which these problems are to be
solved.
GALEN was supported in his researches by an ex­
tremely happy imaginative faculty which put the proper
word in his mouth even in cases where he could not
possibly arrive at a full understanding of the matter—
where he could only conjecture the truth. When for
instance he declares that sound is carried "like a wave "||
or expresses the conjecture that that constituent of the
atmosphere which is important for breathing also acts by
burning,!" he expresses thoughts which startle us, for it was
* GALEN ii, 475, 681, 696. iv, 685. v, 289.—ORIBASIUS op. cit. iii, 236.
+ GALEN iv, 465 et seq.
X GALEN ii, 631.
§ GALEN ii, 677, 682,692, 697. v, 645.—CH. DAREMBERG: Histoire des
sciences me'dicales, T. i, p. 224.
|| GALEN iii, 644.
If GALEN iv, 487.-^6?/. also HJESER : Geschichte der Medicin, Bd. i, S. 360,
3 Aufl.