Galen: On the Natural Faculties

Hoti men oun hê threpsis alloioumenou te kai 143 homoioumenou gignetai tou trephontos tô trephomenô kai hôs en hekastô tôn tou zôou moriôn esti tis dynamis, hên apo tês energeia...

Since feeling and voluntary motion are peculiar to animals, whilst growth and nutrition are common to plants as well, we may look on the former as effects[6] of the _soul_[7] an...

Hoti men oun anankaion estin ouk Erasistratô monon alla 74 kai tois allois hapasin, hosoi mellousi peri diakriseôs ourôn erein ti chrêston, homologêsai dynamin tin' hyparchein t...

If the work of Hippocrates be taken as representing the foundation upon which the edifice of historical Greek medicine was reared, then the work of Galen, who lived some six hun...

In the previous book we demonstrated that not only Erasistratus, but also all others who would say anything to the purpose about urinary secretion, must acknowledge that the kid...

It has been made clear in the preceding discussion that nutrition occurs by an _alteration_ or _assimilation_ of that which nourishes to that which receives nourishment,[299] an...

Expulsion takes place through the same channel as attraction (_e.g._, in stomach, gall-bladder, uterus). Similarly the delivery (_anadosis_) of nutriment to the liver from the f...

The _functions of organs_ also depend on the way in which the four qualities are mixed--_e.g._ the contracting function of the stomach. Treatment only possible when we know the...

The two kinds of attraction--the mechanical attraction of dilating bellows and the "physical" (vital) attraction by living tissue of nutrient matter which is specifically allied...

Erasistratus's disregard for the humours. In respect to excessive formation of bile, however, prevention is better than cure: accordingly we must consider its pathology. Does bl...

The same holds with nutrition. Even if we grant that veins may obtain their nutrient blood by virtue of the _horror vacui_ (chap. i.), how could this explain the nutrition of ne...

Interaction between two bodies; the stronger masters the weaker; a deleterious drug masters the forces of the body, whereas food is mastered by them; this mastery is an _alterat...

Erasistratus denies that the stomach exerts any pull in the act of swallowing. That he is wrong, however, is proved by the anatomical structure of the stomach--its inner coat wi...

Same two faculties seen in stomach. _Gurglings_ or _borborygmi_ show that this organ is weak and is not gripping its contents tightly enough. Undue delay of food in a weak stoma...

Exercise of the retentive faculty particularly well seen in the uterus. Its object is to allow the embryo to attain full development; this being completed, a new faculty--the ex...

A recapitulation of certain points previously demonstrated. Every part of the animal has an attractive and an alterative (assimilative) faculty; it attracts the nutrient juice w...

The morphological factors suggested by Erasistratus are quite inadequate to explain biological happenings. Erasistratus inconsistent with his own statements. The immanence of th...

Unjustified claim by Erasistrateans that their founder had associations with the Peripatetic (Aristotelian) school. The characteristic physiological tenets of that school (which...

The factor which brings the expulsive faculty into action is essentially a condition of the organ or its contents which is the reverse of that which determined attraction. Analo...

The process of genesis (embryogeny) from insemination onwards. Each of the simple, elementary, homogeneous parts (tissues) is produced by a special blend of the four primary alt...

Erasistratus, again, by his favourite principle of _horror vacui_ could never explain the secretion of urine by the kidneys. While, however, he acknowledged that the kidneys do...

In order to explain dispersal of food from alimentary canal _viâ_ the veins (_anadosis_) there is no need to invoke with Erasistratus, the _horror vacui_, since here again the p...

Nutrition not a simple process. (1) Need of subsidiary organs for the various stages of alteration, _e.g._, of bread into blood, of that into bone, etc. (2) Need also of organs...

The superficial arteries, when they dilate, draw in air from the atmosphere, and the deeper ones a fine, vaporous blood from the veins and heart. Lighter matter such as air will...

Failure of Asclepiades to understand the functions of kidneys and ureters. His hypothesis of vaporization of imbibed fluids is here refuted. A demonstration of urinary secretion...

While Asclepiades denies _in toto_ the obvious fact of specific attraction, Epicurus grants the fact, although his attempt to explain it by the atomic hypothesis breaks down. Re...

In the last resort, the ultimate living elements (Erasistratus's _simple vessels_) must draw in their food by virtue of an inherent attractive faculty like that which the lodest...

If attraction and elimination always proceeded _pari passu_, the content of these hollow organs (including gall-bladder and urinary bladder) would never vary in amount. A _reten...

The Erasistratean idea that bile becomes separated out from the blood in the liver because, being the thinner fluid, it alone can enter the narrow stomata of the bile-ducts, whi...

It now being granted that the urine is secreted by the kidneys, the _rationale_ of this secretion is enquired into. The kidneys are not mechanical filters, but are by virtue of...

Definition of terms. Different kinds of _motion_. _Alteration_ or qualitative change. Refutation of the Sophists' objection that such change is only apparent, not real. The four...

Need for elaborating the statements of the ancient physicians. Superiority of Ancients to Moderns. This state of affairs can only be rectified by a really efficient education of...

Three other attempts (by adherents of the Erasistratean school and by Lycus of Macedonia) to explain how the kidneys come to separate out urine from the blood. All these ignore...

The two chief medico-philosophical schools--Atomist and Vitalist. Hippocrates an adherent of the latter school--his doctrine of an original principle or "nature" in every living...

For the sake of the few who realty wish truth, the argument will be continued. A third kind of fibre--the _oblique_--subserves _retention_; the way in which this fibre is dispos...