Artery

Use in the book

The report about Anaxagoras lists artery alongside vein, flesh, sinew, and bone as parts nourished from apparently uniform food. Their growth supports an inference that corresponding constituents already exist in the food, though discernible by reason rather than separately visible. The artery is one example within that argument.

Places to read

1. I.10.12.6The nourishment of arteries supports the report’s inference to like-parted constituents.

Translation in this edition

“Artery” preserves the list’s distinction from vein without importing a modern account of circulation.

Use in the book

Vessels for spirits, blood and air

The anatomy digression distinguishes the functions of arteries, veins and nerves through its account of spirits. Natural spirits arise in the liver and travel through veins; vital spirits are formed in the heart and carried by arteries; animal spirits are formed from the vital spirits in the brain and distributed through nerves for sensation and movement. Blood supplies the material from which spirits arise. The anatomy of the vessels is consequently inseparable from this account of their contents and uses.

Arteries are described as long, hollow and double-covered. Burton names two principal ones, aorta and venosa, from which the remainder derive. The aorta supplies the body; the other fetches air from the lungs to cool the heart. The heart passage repeats the arrangement: the left chamber generates spirits and fire, sends vital spirits through the aorta and receives air through the venosa. The supplied edition identifies the historical arteria venosa with the pulmonary vein. That identification does not convert Burton’s explanation of air and spirits into a modern account of circulation.

The same initial artery paragraph includes the allegation that Vesalius cut up living people to observe these operations. Burton marks it with “they say”; the supplied text provides no supporting authority. It remains hearsay, not verified biographical evidence that an anatomist performed the reported acts. The marginal observation that the pulse is felt in arteries, by contrast, belongs to the paragraph’s explanation of their bodily role.

The rough and vocal artery

The lung passage calls the lungs an instrument of voice, like an orator attached to the kingly heart. It also makes them an instrument of respiration whose office is to cool that heart. Burton then compresses the route: air reaches the heart by the venosal artery, called a “veine,” which is connected in the sentence with the aspera arteria. The latter is the windpipe, composed in this account of cartilage, membranes and nerves and admitting air through nose and mouth. It also carries the heart’s fumes outward. Distinguishing the airway from the pulmonary vessel preserves the difficulty of the historical explanation rather than curing it by silently replacing its anatomy.

The moving-faculty subsection uses “vocall Artery” for the same airway. The diaphragm mediates the passage of air to lungs that expand like bellows, alternately drawing in fresh air and returning heated air after cooling the heart. The immediately following comparison with pulse concerns a similar movement; it does not make the windpipe a blood vessel.

Passion, symptoms and diagnosis

In the general symptom catalogue, the pulse is described as infrequent and slow except at the carotids, where it is strong. Burton qualifies even this by the intensity of the sufferer’s passions, citing Struthius. The next passage sharply reduces the diagnostic confidence a reader might infer: for chronic diseases, pulse distinctions receive little weight, and a skeptical report says Galen’s distinctions cannot all be observed or understood. Reading the continuation prevents a local description from becoming a universally reliable test.

Later, in love melancholy, Struthius is reported to claim that passions can be detected by feeling the arteries. He identifies a woman’s attachment by changes of pulse when a particular name is spoken. The inference is his reported case, not Burton’s own examination of the patient. The margin suggests adultery more explicitly than the main text. The case shows why pulse can remain attractive as an interpretive sign even after the earlier doubts; the book juxtaposes different authorities and purposes.

Arteries also enter explanations of emotion’s physical action and relief. Gomesius’s account of laughter links vapours from the heart, a tickled diaphragm, distended arteries and spirits moving through the face and sides. In praise of music, sound affects the arteries and rouses vital and animal spirits, thereby enlivening the mind. These are proposed physiological pathways, not merely decorative references to the body. Conversely, the warning against excessive drinking includes swollen jugular veins among its bodily consequences. The presence of a vein in this article preserves the older lexical contrast without relabelling it an artery.

A final translation distinction occurs in a historical explanation of women’s melancholy. The Latin phrase inflammationem arteriæ circa dorsum specifies inflammation of an artery near the back; Burton’s ensuing English says only “an inflammation of the back.” The modern column retains both. The artery belongs to Rodericus’s attributed contribution to a larger vapour-and-sympathy explanation, not to an independent present-day diagnosis.

Related entries

Organical parts; Anatomical membranes; Heart and cordolium; Lights; Spirits; Blood and sanguine; Passion; Consent and essence

Places to read

1. 1.1.2.2–3the spirits and vessel systems; aorta and venosa; pulse and the hearsay about Vesalius
2. 1.1.2.4heart chambers, pulmonary vessel and windpipe in the cooling account
3. 1.1.2.8the vocal artery and the bellows movement of respiration
4. 1.3.1.1carotid pulse, emotional variation and immediate doubts about diagnostic distinctions
5. First Partition · paragraph 29–30artery near the back in the Latin and the broader English restatement
6. First Partitionarteries in the explanation of laughter
7. Second Partition · paragraph 3–5music acting through arteries and spirits
8. Second Partitionswollen jugular veins in the account of excessive drinking
9. Third PartitionStruthius’s reported pulse inference about a lover

In this edition

The source prints “aspera arteria.” The modern column renders that phrase and “vocall Artery” as “windpipe.” It retains “venosal artery,” keeping the historical name in a sentence whose physiology would be changed by an unqualified substitution. “Carotides” becomes “carotid arteries,” and “juglars” becomes “jugular veins.” At the passage “rare” means infrequent, while “intended passions” means intensified emotions; neither word supplies the anatomical identity of the carotids.

The modern rendering translates the Latin artery phrase separately from Burton’s broader English paraphrase. It attributes the patient and pulse observations to Struthius. The source’s anatomical claims, its quoted medical reports and the supplied notes identifying older terms are different evidentiary layers.

aorta

Printed “Aorta” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Principal artery described as the source or root of the other arteries serving the body.

Context: Burton’s two-principal-artery scheme.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Aorta is the root of all the other

Modern rendering, Modern wording: The aorta is the root of all the others

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

artery · Arteries

Printed “Arteries” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Vessels described as double-covered carriers of vital spirits.

Context: Burton’s inherited physiology; Vesalius allegation in continuation marked they say.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Arteries are long and hollow, with a double skin to convey the vital spirits

Modern rendering, Modern wording: Arteries are long and hollow, with a double covering, and convey the vital spirits.

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole descriptive sentence

artery · arteries · local use 1

Printed “arteries” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Vessels stretched in the attributed mechanism of laughter.

Context: Gomesius’s explanation; sense, diaphragm and spirits jointly involved.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: arteries distended, or pulled

Modern rendering, Modern wording: stretches or pulls the arteries

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole passive-to-active rendering within sentence

artery · arteries · local use 2

Printed “arteries” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Vessels through which music is said physically to stimulate the spirits.

Context: Continuation of praise of music; Lemnius cited, not an observed present-day mechanism.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: affecting not onely the ears, but the very arteries

Modern rendering, Modern wording: It affects not only the ears but the arteries themselves

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole clause; It supplied to resume music

artery · arteries · local use 3

Printed “arteries” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Vessels felt to detect changes of pulse in an attributed account of passion.

Context: Struthius is quoted; the woman is his patient and the diagnosis his inference.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: touch their arteries

Modern rendering, Modern wording: feel their arteries

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole imperative phrase

aspera arteria

Printed “aspera arteria” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.

Citation convention

Windpipe, literally rough artery, in the historical respiratory account.

Context: Airway connected with pulmonary vessel in compressed sentence; not a modern artery.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: by that aspera arteria

Modern rendering, Modern wording: by way of the windpipe

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

carotid artery names

Printed “Carotides” (Latinized Greek anatomical name in English; family). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Neck arteries, contrasted with the generally slow pulse in this historical symptom account.

Context: Burton qualifies by passions then reports skepticism about pulse diagnosis next.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: except it be of the Carotides which is very strong

Modern rendering, Modern wording: except in the carotid arteries, where it is very strong

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole exception clause

inflammationem arteriæ circa dorsum

Printed “inflammationem arteriæ circa dorsum” (Latin; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: inflammationem arteriæ circa dorsum

Citation convention

Inflammation of an artery near the back, more specific than Burton’s following English paraphrase.

Context: Rodericus’s addition to historical causal account; preceding and following text concerns harmful vapours and sympathy.

Source: original body

Modern rendering, Modern wording: An inflammation of the artery near the back

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole Latin phrase

intended passions

Printed “intended passions” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Intensified emotions or disturbances, not planned or deliberate emotions.

Context: Pulse varies with emotional intensity; no fixed diagnostic rule.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: according to their intended passions or perturbations

Modern rendering, Modern wording: with the intensity of their passions or emotional disturbances

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole qualifying construction; intensity is the contribution of intended

jugular vein names

Printed “juglars” (English; family). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Jugular veins described as swollen through excessive drinking.

Context: Burton’s catalogue of consequences of excess; not jugglers or airway.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: get swoln juglars

Modern rendering, Modern wording: they develop swollen jugular veins

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole verbal phrase; subject supplied from sentence

rare

Printed “rare” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Infrequent, describing beats separated by longer intervals.

Context: Reported symptom, immediately qualified by carotid exception, passions and skeptical continuation.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: Their pulse is rare & slow

Modern rendering, Modern wording: Their pulse is infrequent and slow

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: whole clause; rare contributes infrequent, slow is separate

venosa

Printed “Venosa” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Historical pulmonary vessel said to bring air from lungs to heart.

Context: Heart is the receiving subject; supplied note identifies pulmonary vein while preserving physiology.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: that Artery which is called Venosa

Modern rendering, Modern wording: the artery called the venosa

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

venosal artery

Printed “Venosal Artery” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Historical vessel assigned the passage of air from lungs to heart.

Context: Burton calls it a vein in continuation; windpipe remains a distinct term.

Source: original body

Source wording: by the Venosal Artery

vocall artery

Printed “vocall Artery” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Windpipe carrying inhaled air in the bellows explanation of breathing.

Context: Air is drawn through it; diaphragm and lungs mediate the subsequent action.

Source: original body

Source wording: The outward aire is drawn in by the vocall Artery