In this pioneering experimental study of coronary function, describing the first experimental tying of a coronary vessel, Chirac demonstrated that cardiac arrest occurs in response to coronary ligation. “A special position must be allocated to the French physician Pierre Chirac for having performed the first experimental ligation of a coronary artery in a dog. His book De motu cordis (1698) is an early attempt at experimental pathology with regard to the coronary vessels. Likewise there is much information on the fibers of the heart; some ideas are also expressed as to measuring the heart’s power . . . the blood volume, too, was estimated” (Leibowitz, The History of Coronary Heart Disease, p. 305). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.