Autism Prevalence & Respiratory Depression at Birth

William Harvey (1578-1657)

, a century before the discovery of oxygen demonstrated

through dissection of cold- and warm-blooded animals that blood circulates through the

body by the pumping action of the heart:

"It is absolutely necessary to conclude that the

blood is in a state of ceaseless

motion; that this

the act or function which the heart performs by

means of its

pulse; and that is the sole and only

end of the motion and contraction of the

heart."

In his investigations into the

origins of life and fetal development, Harvey further

pointed

out the meaning and importance of pulsations

of the umbilical cord:

"Moreover, it is a sure way to know whether the

Infant that sticketh in the birth

alive, or not, by

the pulsation of the Vmbilical Arteries. But most

certain it is,

that

those Arteries are not moved by

the virtue or operation of the Mothers,

but of his

own proper Heart: For they keep a distinct time

and pawze, from the

Mothers

pulse: which is

easily experimented, if you lay one hand upon

the

Mothers wrest,

and the other on the Infants

Navel-string. Nay in a Casarean

Section, when

the

Embryo's have been yet involved in the

membrane called

Chorion, I have

oftentimes

found (even when the Mother was extinct, and

stiffe almost with cold)

the Vmbilical Arteries

beating, and the Foetus himself

lusty."

Harvey, William. Anatomical exercitations concerning the generation of living creatures to which are added

particular discourses of births and of conceptions, &c.London : Printed by James Young, for Octavian Pulleyn,

and

are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the Rose in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1653. From Early English Books

Online

http://eebo.chadwyck.com/