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HIS DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE. 205
" The plan of the work is this : Swedenborg first gives extracts from the
greatest anatomists of his own and former times, such as Malpighi, Leuwenhoek,
Morgagni, Swammerdam, Heister, Winslow, &c. &c., so that these volumes
contain a body of old anatomy (translated now into close English) such as can-
not be met with in this shape elsewhere. He then gives his own unencumber-
ed deductions from this *
experience,’ under tlie heading ’
analysis.’ Each organ
of the thorax and abdomen in this way has a two-fold chapter allotted to its
consideration, which chapter is a complete little essay, or we may say, epic,
upon the subject. The philosophical unity of the work is astonishing, and
serves to unlock the most abstruse organs, such as the spleen, thymus gland,
supra-renal capsules, and other parts upon which Swedenborg has dilated with
an analytic efficacy which the moderns have not even approached ; and of
which the ancients afforded scarcely an indication. Upon these more mysteri-
ous organs, we think his views most suggestive and valuable, and worthy of
the whole attention of the better minds of the medical profession. Of the doc-
trine of series, since called by the less appropriate term, ’ homology,’ he has
afforded the most singular illustrations, not confining hi mself to the law of se-
ries in the solids, but boldly pushing it into the domain of the fluids, and this
with an energy of purpose, and a strength of conception and execution, such as
is rarely shown by *
any nine men in these degenerate days.’ We opened this
book with surprise, a surprise grounded upon the name and fame of the author,
and upon the daring affirmative stand which he takes in limine ; we close it with
a deep-laid wonder, and with an anxious wish that it may not appeal in vain to
a profession which may gain s© much, both morally, intellectually, and scien*
tifically, from the priceless truths contained in its pages."
In addition to the discoveries above mentioned as fairly due to the genius of Sweden-
borg, we have gleaned, from different sources, the following items which doubtless be-
long to the same category. The first is from the Boston " New Jerusalem Magazine"
for February 1847.
" The Vitality of the Blood. —It is said in the Bible, ’ But flesh with the life thereof,
which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat ’ (Gen. ix. 4). And the opinion that
the blood was a living substance has existed from the remotest antiquity. Har-
vey, the celebrated discoverer of the circulation of the blood, held this opinion
very strongly, and it has been adopted by some other learned men at different
times, as may be seen in the works of Good, Carpenter, Elliotson, and others on
Medicine or Physiology. But it was never,—at least in modern times,—gener-
ally received, and was held by all who maintained it, only hypothetically, and
as a supposition of greater or less probability. From this we must, however,
except Swedenborg. In his philosophical works, written more than one hun-
dred years ago, he distinctly asserts the vitality of the blood, not only as a truth,
but as a fundamental truth of all sound physiology. The Swedenborg Society
of London have just pubhshed a thin volume of his « Opuscula,’ or little works,
in the original Latin, from his manuscripts in the library of the Royal Academy
of Stockholm. One of these little works is *
De Sanguine Rubro’—’ Of the
Red Blood.’ We do not propose to give an account of his views on this subject
;
for they are so exceedingly condensed in this small treatise, that a further
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