VOL, VI THE FIRST QUANTITA- PHYSIOLOGY. Let us trarily or from experiment, the quantity of blood which the left ventricle of the heart will contain when distended, to be, say two ounces, three ounces, or one ounce and a half-in the dead body I have found it to hold upwards of two ounces. Let us assume further, how much less the heart will hold in the con. tracted than in the dilated states; and how much blood it will project into the aorta upon each contraction; and all the world allows that with the systole something is always projected, a necessary consequence demonstrated in the third chapter, and obvious from the structure of the valves, and let us suppose as approaching the truth that the fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or even but the eighth part of its charge is thrown into the artery at each contraction; this would give either half an ounce, or three drachm of blood as propelled by the heart at each pulse into the aorta, which quantity, by reason of the valves at the root of the vessel, can by no means return into the ventricle. Now in the course of half an hour, the heart will have made more than one thousand beats, in some as many as two, three, and even four thousand. Multiplying the number of drachms propelled by the number of pulses, we shall have either one thousand halfounces, or one thousand times three drachms, or a like proportional quantity of blood, according to the amount which we assume is propelled with each stroke of the heart, sent from this organ into the artery; larger quantity in every case than is contained in the whole body! In the same way, in the sheep or dog, say that but a assume, either arbi tained in the case of the sheep. a Eugene M. Travis 29 W. E. Anthony, M. D. 35 Initial letters, devices, and tail pieces by Mills Tnompson and Mildred McM, Blancnett. Upon this supposition, therefore, assumed merely as a ground for reasoning, we see the whole mass of blood passing through the heart, from the veins to the arteries, and in like manner through the lungs. But let it be said that this does not take place in half an hour, but in an hour, or even in a day; any way it is still manifest that more blood passes through the heart in consequence of its action, than can either be supplied by the whole of the ingesta, or than can be contained in the veins at the same moment. -Harvey: De Moto Cordes, Ch. IX. The practice of the bleeders continued in fashion in England until the beginning of this century. John Coutsley Lettson, who possessed high literary attainments, and who was President of the Philosophical Society of London, and who entertained at his house at Grove Hill, Camberwell, many of the most distinguished men of his time, including Boswell and Dr. Johnson, and whose writings show he was an enlightened physician, was bold in his treatment of disease, and a heroic bleeder. He used to say of himself: “When patients sick to me apply, I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em; Then if they choose to die, What's that to me-I let's 'em." -The Doctor. THE LIFE AND LOVE OF TORQUATO "Then when the gale is sighing, And when the leaves are dying, And when the song is o'er, O let us think of those Whose cup of grief runs o'er." TASSO OME of us think that our road through life is too rough for human travel. Some of us sigh and think what might have been. But few of us have drunk so much of the cup of misfortune and adversity that we do not have the greatest pity and sympathy for poor old Tasso a star in the heaven of Italian poetry of little less brilliance than that of Dante and Petrarch-whose life story is one of the saddest of biographies. A son of Bernado Tasso, a courtier, scholar, and poet of no mean ability, and of Portia Rossi, a Neapolitan lady of great beauty and accomplishments, Torquato Tasso was born March 11, 1544, at Sorrento, across the bay from Naples, in a palace overlooking the ocean. At the time of Torquato's birth, Bernado, even though a nobleman and in the service of others, was in good financial circumstances. The morning of young Tasso's life was bright, but the sun soon went behind the clouds -for soon Ferrante Sanseverino, the patron of Bernado, who had been called a heretic by the leaders in the Inquisition and who had barely escaped assassination on several occasions, left Italy for France. The elder Tasso felt honor bound to accompany his friend and benefactor. As a result, Tasso and Sanseverino were declared rebels, deprived of their estates and sentenced to death. By this edict Tasso lost a richly furnished house and an annual revenue of 900 scudi, from which misfortune he never recovered. Entering a Jesuit school, Torquato made much progress in his studies and had such a craving for knowledge, it is said, that he often left home before daybreak for school. But later, compelled by the necessary change of residence of his mother and sister to the monastery of San Festo, Torquato joined his father at Rome. Young Tasso, though just ten years old, grieved much at this forced parting and twenty or thirty years later expressed his feelings in an Ode to the River Metauro: "Me from my mother's breast, a child, Did cruel Fortune tear; The tears she shed, the kisses wild She press'd in her despair To Heaven for me, in air I yet remember, weep for yet! To meet her face to face, I left her-oh the pang severe ! O'er hill and dale, through brush and briar, The footsteps of my wandering sire." The parting of Torquato and his mother proved to be final, as Portia died two years later at the monastery, under suspicious circumstances. This calamity affected very much the sensitive young son. When the war between Philip II and the Pope began, Torquato fled from Rome to Pesaro, at which place he became companion-in-study to the Duke's son. Two years later he went to Venice, where his father was publishing "Amadigi." Here he diligently studied Dante and Petrarch. In November, 1560, at the behest of his father, Torquato entered the University of Padua. In addition to the studying of law, which was a most uninteresting duty, Torquato began to write poetry, and ten months later, in his eighteenth year, he produced the beautiful and scholarly poem "Rinaldo," which work had an unprecedented success and brought European fame to its author. Soon afterwards, he went to the University of Bologna, where he remained only a short time, leaving there to enter the service of the Cardinal d'Este, at Ferrara, the center of a rich and cultured court, which city was the principal scene of Tasso's glory and misfortunes. For several years, thereafter, fortune smiled on Torquato. The young and handsome poet received many honors. He made the acquaintance or friendship of many of the learned and famous men of that time, and he was especially fortunate in becoming a close friend of the Princesses Lucretia and Lenora of Este, two cultured, beautiful and poetry-loving ladies. Tasso began work on his "Gerusalemme," and as he finished the composition, he read parts of the poem to the two admiring and interested princesses. Occasionally he wrote pretty sonnets to the sisters. In 1570, a year after the death of the elder Tasso, the Princess Lucretia became the wife of the Duke of Urbino. After losing her chief companion, the Princess Lenora cultivated more and more the society of the accomplished and gentle-mannered Torquato. To Lenora, Tasso read the story of Sophronia and Olindo from his "Jerusalem Liberated," which story the majority of readers will always consider as a veiled expression of the great passion with which the young singer worshipped the fair lady. On account of the distance which rank and ceremony placed between them, Tasso could not think of marrying Lenora. But he could dream of her and sing of her, and he did immortalize her in his verses, the following being one of the pretty poems inspired by his love: "Love binds my soul in chains of bliss, I am not sorrowful for this, But why I quarrel with him is, "When I my lady should salute, But timid and confused stand mute, "Loose, gentle love, my tongue, and if and he resumed work on his "Gerusalemme." As a relaxation from this task he composed in less than two months his "Aminta," a pastoral poem of consummate beauty, which alone would have immortalized the name of Tasso. About this time he also wrote the following sonnet, called "The Amorous Accident": “My lady at a balcony alone One day was standing, when I chanced to stretch I had offended her; she sweetly answer'd In 1575 or 1577, Tasso completed his "Jerusalem Liberated," the greatest of his works; and then by submitting this poem to several critics did he bring great trouble upon himself. The ascetic severity of some of these censors, especially the Inquisitor Antonio, "who professed to see, in his charming fictions, something profane and seductive and derogatory to the sanctity of the Catholic church, of which they were the bigoted expectants," filled Tasso with bitterness and fear that the Inquisition might call him a heretic and forbid the publication of his great poem. A short time later, when he learned that his manuscripts had been stolen and that his poem was being printed in various parts of Italy, Tasso became more worried and depressed, morose and irritable. Later he became suspicious of all those about him and subject to frequent outbursts of violence. It has been said that his Jesuit education, the mysterious death of his mother, his overwork and worry all helped to prepare the way for the calamity which was to cast a shadow over the rest of his life. On the evening of June 15, 1577, in the presence of Lucretia, Tasso hurled a knife at a passing servant of whom he was suspicious. As a result, Tasso was confined to his chamber and later in the monastery of St. Francis. From this latter place he escaped and, evading the horsemen sent to capture him, he made his weary way, disguised as a peasant and often begging his bread as a common mendicant, to his sister's home in Sorrento. Here he improved much In the same year-1570-to the court of Charles IX at Paris, Tasso accompanied his patron, the Cardinal d'Este. Here this Italian poet received a great welcome and many rich presents from the king, the latter of which he declined to accept. Not long afterwards, picious. Not long afterwards, by expressing his indignation at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Torquato lost the favor of the Cardinal and went to Rome, where Lenora was a visitor. By the mediation of the Princess, Tasso secured from the Duke of Alphonso, a brother of Lenora, a liberal pension, and began to long to return to Ferrara, whither he soon "There is no solace on earth for us-for such as we- In February, 1579, during the preparations for the Duke's third marriage, Tasso once more returned to Ferrara. Unexpected, unwanted, barred from the society of the Duke and the Princesses, and mocked by the courtiers, the wretched poet gave vent to his feelings and cursed, in no uncertain terms, the ungrateful house to which he had given the best years of his life. As a result he was immediately taken to the pauper madhouse of St. Anna, where he was chained in an underground room. The letters he wrote were most pathetic and the following lines, addressed to Lenora of Este, tell a story of "love's labor lost": "Though, princely Lady, Love sometimes appears "And the glad heart which at thy worth whilere Glowed, and has since been most sincerely thine, Yet in its casket treasures forms more fair Than gems or corals, pearls, or purple fine. "This would it whisper in a sigh so low, "But of thy grace, its delightful wealth, The death, in 1581, of Lenora called forth many touching lines from the pen of the poet, who was chained as though he were a madman. The following is one of those elegies: "The flame that late my heart consumed, Is quenched on earth, but reillumed In Heaven-in radiant pomp to wheel Where Night her sable curtain spreads, And scatters o'er the mead and grove Her hoary frost-it shines and sheds, I feel it shed around, a sweet Assurance of congenial heat. "Sweet flame, but now a lovely star! If e'er you ruled, whilst here you stayed, My dubious foot-steps near and far, Oh, now that thou'rt immortal made, From these wild rocks and billows dark, Guide to calm rest my weary bark." Some of Tasso's friends published a correct edition of his "Jerusalem Liberated," which went through many printings and made its wretched author still more famous throughout all Europe. But Tasso derived no money from the sale of his work. Many of the most famous and illustrious men of the time, headed by the Emperor and high ecclesiastics, appealed unavailingly for the release of the imprisoned poet. Tasso must have thought with Stanton: "So many storms ere the thunders shall cease, After keeping the poet in the asylum for nearly eight years, Duke Alphonso mysteriously relented and freed the weak and weary genius. At the time of his release poor old Tasso was broken in body and in spirit. Like the Palmer, in Scott's tale of "Marmion": "His cheek was sunk, alas the while! And when he struggled at a smile, His eye looked haggard wild." The remainder of his life Tasso spent in various cities, chiefly Naples; he recovered much of his health. and spirits and wrote a new poem of the Crusades called "Jerusalem Conquered." At that time he was everywhere a welcome and honored guest. He had the distinction of being offered the laurel crown, which no one had worn since Dante's death. He accepted the coveted honor, but died in Rome, April 25th, 1595, just one day before the scheduled coronation. He was buried with honor on a hill just outside of Rome. All of those who attended the funeral must have wept, as did Aladdin on his mother's grave: "Sleep within thy flowery bed, Lull'd by visions without number: Needs no pillow for thy head, Needs no rocking for thy slumber." MARSHALL FORD MORRIS, JR., M. D. Atlanta, Georgia. |