Now it belongs to the treatise "On the Use of Parts" to show that it
was best that some parts of the body should be nourished by pure,
thin, and vaporous blood, and others by thick, turbid blood, and that
in this matter also Nature has overlooked nothing. Thus it is not
desirable that these matters should be further discussed. Having
mentioned, however, that there are two kinds of attraction, certain
bodies exerting attraction along wide channels during diastole (by
virtue of the principle by which a vacuum becomes refilled) and others
exerting it by virtue of their appropriateness of quality, we must
next remark that the former bodies can attract even from a distance,
while the latter can only do so from among things which are quite
close to them; the very longest tube let down into water can easily
draw up the liquid into the mouth, but if you withdraw iron to a
distance from the lodestone or corn from the jar (an instance of this
kind has in fact been already given[405]) no further attraction can
take place.
This you can observe most clearly in connection with _garden
conduits_. For a certain amount of moisture is distributed from these
into every part lying close at hand but it cannot reach those lying
further off: therefore one has to arrange the flow of water into all
parts of the garden by cutting a number of small channels leading from
the large one. The intervening spaces between these small channels are
made of such a size as will, presumably, best allow them [the spaces]
to satisfy their needs by drawing from the liquid which flows to them
from every side. So also is it in the bodies of animals. Numerous
conduits distributed through the various limbs bring them pure blood,
much like the garden water-supply, and, further, the intervals between
these conduits have been wonderfully arranged by Nature from the
outset so that the intervening parts should be plentifully provided
for when absorbing blood, and that they should never be deluged by a
quantity of superfluous fluid running in at unsuitable times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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