Giraffe have unusually high heart rates for their size, at 150 beats per minute. When the animal lowers its head the blood rushes down fairly unopposed and a rete mirabile in the upper neck, with its large cross sectional area, prevents excess blood flow to the brain. When it raises again, the blood vessels constrict and direct blood into the brain so the animal does not faint. The jugular veins contain several (most commonly seven) valves to prevent blood flowing back into the head from the inferior vena cava and right atrium while the head is lowered. Conversely, the blood vessels
Jean Riolan the Younger through the blood vessels to the body's extremities and returned to the heart only two or three times a day. He also postulated that blood often ebbed and flowed in the veins and that it was taken in as nourishment by different parts of the body. Riolan also did not believe that the heart propelled the blood, instead he proposed that the blood kept the heart in motion, analogous to a stream moving the wheel of a water mill. Riolan had other disagreements with Harvey, such as the role of the liver as a blood-manufacturing organ. Riolan was an opponent