Spinning top and the motion of water in the veins
A whipped top, with a note likening water rising in veins to the body's humours
A whipped spinning top is studied at the upper right, sketched together with smaller diagrams of the top spinning on its base. A note at the left names the whip and the top. A line at the foot, written in ordinary non-mirror script, likens the cause that drives water upward through veins against its own weight to the force that moves the humours in every kind of living body.
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Whipped spinning top
The study shows a spinning top set in motion by a lash, drawn large at the upper right with the whip's trailing line and repeated in smaller sketches of the top standing on its base. A note beside it names the whip and the top.
Water rising in veins likened to the body's humours
A line in ordinary script argues that the cause which drives water up through veins, against the natural downward pull of its weight, is the same as that which moves the humours through every kind of living body. It states Leonardo's familiar analogy between the waters coursing in the earth and the fluids of the body.