passages, where they arrive in too large a number, or are of irregular
figures, or move too fast or proceed too slow: that phrensies,
lethargies, pleurisies, burning fevers, for example, are occasioned by
these corpuscles stopping of their own accord: that pain is produced by
the stagnation of the largest of all these corpuscles, of which the
blood consists: that, on the contrary, deliriums, languors,
extenuations, leanness and dropsies derive their origin from a bad state
of the pores, which are too much relaxed, or opened: that dropsy, in
particular, proceeds from the flesh being perforated with various small
holes which convert the nourishment received into them into water; that
hunger is occasioned by an opening of the large pores of the stomach and
belly: that thirst arises from an opening of the small pores: that
intermittent fevers have the same origin: that quotidian fever is
produced by a retention of the largest corpuscles; tertian fever by a
retention of corpuscles somewhat smaller; and quartan fever by a
retention of the smallest corpuscles of all.
Galen maintained that the animal body is composed of three principles,
namely, the solids, the humours, and the spirits: that the solid parts
consist of similar and organic: that the humours are four in number,
namely, the blood, the phlegm, the yellow bile, and the black bile: that
the spirits are of three kinds, namely, the vital, the animal, and the
natural; that the vital spirit is a subtle vapour which arises from the
blood, and which derives its origin from the liver, the organ of
sanguification: that the spirits, thus formed, are conveyed to the
heart, where, in conjunction with the air drawn into the lungs by
respiration, they become the matter of the second species, namely, of
the vital spirits; that in their turn the vital spirits are changed into
the animal in the brain, and so on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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