Blood Vessels of the Body.--The blood-vessels of the human body consists of heart, arteries, veins and capillaries.  the heart and its wonders we have already referred to.  In this magnificent chart we are enabled to form some idea of the larger blood-vessels.  We see the main arterial tube of the body -- the aorta -- from a point where it unites with the arch of the aorta; and in its dissent downward along the spinal column it gives off numerous branches.

The Arteries.--opposite the fourth lumbar vertebra is seen to split in two, and these divisions are called, from their position, the right and left iliac arteries.  These are seen to divide again into the internal and external iliac arteries, the former of which is distributed to the walls and this are contained in the pelvis, then proceeding to the lower limbs after sending two important branches to the abdominal walls.  The arch of the aorta gives off the innominate artery, which divides and to the right carotid and right subclavian arteries; the left carotid and left subclavian spring direct from the arch of the aorta.  Each carotid artery divides into the external and internal carotid arteries, the former being distributed to the external parts of the face and head; the latter supplies the brain and internal parts of the cranium.  The subclavian arteries supply the upper extremities with blood.

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These sections are fairly descriptive and provide an apt description of these initial areas covered.  The word innominate did throw me for a loop and I had to go look it up on Wikipedia.

As a processing point for this blog, I'm going to attempt to speed up my coverage of the book.  So for things to be going a little too slow for my own tastes and I don't want to grow stale on the topic.  I hope you'll bear with me, but this may lead to if you additional incorrect translations of the spellings from the book.  I feel the need to get through the book and I suspect I will be making additional passes back to the book at later dates.  If you come across anything that just doesn't make sense and I haven't covered already please feel free to leave a comment, I'll reference again in the book and determine if I've made in an accurate translation or if it's just a peculiar topic as it's covered in the book itself.

I don't expect any extreme mistakes or extra peculiar things to come up such as substituting strange words into context in the book are ascribing people wearing an animal costume or who knows what, but I am using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to translate the book and the software does upon occasion make some strange substitutions and words.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• Colon Cleanser on Public Health Forum
  
  

  Now I cover a lot of items that seem a little peculiar culturally speaking. Today, I happened across PublicHealthForums.com. One of their sub-forums is a Bowtrol Forum. People show up to the forum to get Bowtrol Reviews and try and decide whether or not they should Buy Bowtrol.

  Now I mention this because one of the people visiting the form asked the perfectly logical question:

  I have a question. I just ordered a two months supply. My husband is afraid to try the product during working hours. Will it cause discomfort during the day? Any cramping, diarrhea, or other extremes?

  That is definitely a reasonable question for a colon cleanser. Culturally speaking I wonder what people will think about this type of Social Networking in the future. In many ways the Library of Health is a book that published the accumulated medical knowledge of the time to distribute to people around the country. It was a codification of medical practices and possibly word of mouth knowledge and herbal lore even.

  Not so different than people coming together to work out a best practice solution for the usage of a medical product or treatment today.

• Modern Science Gives us Vision
  
  

  One of the things that the Great Workman (see my last post) do not give us as people is universal good vision.  When I was in fifth grade my vision went south and I had start wearing glasses.  A few years later when I went in the eighth grade I tried wearing contacts.  They were hard contacts and I remember walking out of the doctors office being amazed that I could see the leaves on the trees. 

  Since they were hard contacts I stopped wearing them within about two weeks.

  A few years later disposable contacts came out and I bought my first box of disposable contact lenses for about $100 a box, that included about six contacts in each box and I needed two boxes one for each eye.

  The work contact lenses for the next 10 years and the prices really went down and I started to purchase my contact lenses online.  I haven’t worn any contact lenses since 2001 I have LASIK surgery.

  I was amazed today to see just how cheap contact lenses have become.  I was looking through a contact lenses site and noticed the prices of the contacts I used to purchase were now down to about $10 a box.

  

  Notice the price of the Acuvue 2 lenses!

  When I decided to have LASIK, I partially made my decision based on how much it would cost to keep buying contacts and  glasses over the next 10 years.Prices of drop dramatically and my choice probably would’ve been different if I had made that decision today.

• Blood-vessels of the Liver
  
  

  Blood-vessels of the Liver.  –.  The blood-vessels of the liver are the hepatic artery and veins, and the portal vein; the lymphatic vessels are numerous, and the nerves are supplied from the pneumogastric, the phrenic and the hepatic plexus.  The liver, therefore, receives two kinds of blood: the arterial, by means of the hepatic artery, and the venous, from the portal vein, from which the bile is principally formed.  The bile is a dark golden fluid, of extremely bitter taste, of which 3 pounds is secreted daily.  When not used in digestion is stored away in the gall-bladder; a fine view of the location of which we have in this chart,  the action of the bile on food, but not fully understood, is necessary for perfect digestion.

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  Again there is a reference to 3 pounds daily.  So now I’m wondering if the 3 pounds of bile that our bodies are supposedly creating everyday is related to the 3 pounds of food or 3 pounds of liquid that were supposed to be consuming.  Maybe it’s half-and-half, 1 1/2 pounds of food and one half pounds of water generate 3 pounds of bile secreted from our liver.

  I wouldn’t bet your vacation home Orlando on it.  I’m also curious as to whether or not the author actually tasted bile from a liver.  In many ways I’m glad I was not a scientist a hundred or 200 years ago. . . .