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The blood from the right chamber of the heart must arrive at the left chamber but there is no direct pathway between them. The thick septum of the heart is not perforated and does not have visible pores as some people thought or invisible pores as Galen thought. The blood from the right chamber must flow through the vena arteriosa to the lungs, spread through its substances, be mingled there with air, pass through the arteria venosa to reach the left chamber of the heart and there form the vital spirit.

“The hands of the parties are joined . Small incisions are made on the clasped hands, on the pits of the stomach of each, and on the right cheeks and foreheads. A small quantity of blood is taken off from these points, in both parties, by means of a stalk of grass. The blood from one person is put into a pot of beer, and that of the second into another; each then drinks the other’s blood, and they are supposed to become perpetual friends, or relations.

During the drinking of the beer, some of the party continue beating the ground with short clubs, and utter sentences by way of ratifying the treaty. The men belonging to each [principal’s party], then finish the beer.

The principals in the performance of ‘Kasendi’ are henceforth considered blood-relations, and are bound to disclose to each other any impending evil.”




The belief seems to have been universal, not only that the blood is the life of the organism in which it originally flows, but that in its transfer from one organism to another the blood retains its life, and so carries with it a vivifying power.

There are traces of this belief in the earliest legends of the Old World, and of the New; in classic story; and in medical practices as well, all the world over, from time immemorial until the present day.

Oxygenated blood and muscle are red because they contain ferrous iron. Oxygenated blood circulates throughout tissues giving all organs a pink-red hue, more strikingly observed in the skin, mucosae, retina, the fresh gray matter of the brain, the red nucleus of the midbrain, the spleen, and the placenta. In contrast, deoxygenated blood is purple-blue because of its high carbamino-Hb content (CO2 bound to Hb, purple-blue color)