Translations:Circulatory system/61/en

The Greek physician, Herophilus, distinguished veins from arteries but thought that the pulse was a property of arteries themselves. Greek anatomist Erasistratus observed that arteries that were cut during life bleed. He ascribed the fact to the phenomenon that air escaping from an artery is replaced with blood that enters between veins and arteries by very small vessels. Thus he apparently postulated capillaries but with reversed flow of blood.