The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)

Chapter 91: CHAP. 89.—THE ARTERIES; THE VEINS: ANIMALS WITHOUT ARTERIES OR VEINS. THE BLOOD AND THE SWEAT.

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The work assembles systematic observations on animals, insects, and trees, combining natural history with practical notes. It surveys insect forms and habits, including bees, silk‑producing worms, spiders, and parasitic species, and discusses reproduction, classification, diseases, and useful products like honey and silk. It then examines animal anatomy in detail, limb by limb and organ by organ, comparing organs, vital functions, and bodily peculiarities across species. Later sections catalogue trees and exotic plants, describing aromatic gums, spices, frankincense, myrrh, and methods for producing and testing unguents and perfumes, and noting their uses and regions of origin.

CHAP. 89.—THE ARTERIES; THE VEINS: ANIMALS WITHOUT ARTERIES OR VEINS. THE BLOOD AND THE SWEAT.

The arteries are destitute of sensation, for they are devoid of blood. They do not, all of them, however, contain the vital spirit, and when one of them has been cut, it is only that part of the body that is reduced to a torpid state. Birds have neither veins nor arteries, which is the case also with serpents, tortoises, and lizards; and they have but a very small proportion of blood. The veins, which are dispersed beneath the whole skin in filaments of extreme thinness, terminate with such remarkable fineness, that the blood is able to penetrate no further, or, indeed, anything else, except an extremely subtle humour which oozes forth from the skin in innumerable small drops, and is known to us as “sweat.” The knot, and place of union of the veins, is the navel.