Abstract

In the debate about blood held in the seventeenth century by physicians and natural philosophers many ideas had their origin in Greek mythology, in religious thought and in necromantic divination, where blood was believed to be an almost miraculous fluid. These ancient and popular ideas concerning blood joined together with the notions and the methods of mechanical philosophy; physicians, investigating the nature of blood according to the ways of the "new philosophy", often confirmed the traditional views about blood and its wonderful properties. The context of the discussion on the circulation and role of human blood shows that the physicians who, in seventeenth century, gave mechanical explanations of biological phenomena, never supported reductionism.