COMMENTARY. According to the views of the ancient physiologists, the liver is the seat of the Natural powers, being the grand organ of sanguification, and the blood being the pabulum which nourishes the whole body. That the liver performs an important part in the fabrication of the blood seems probable from all the veins of the stomach and upper portion of the intestines passing to the liver, whereby it is to be supposed, that a considerable proportion of the nutritive juices will be conveyed to it; and from this viscus being proportionally large in the fœtus when it is much required to form blood, and cannot be supposed necessary for any other purpose. The ancients taught that the liver, by its attractive power, attracts the chyle from the stomach; that, by its retentive, it retains the same until the alterative convert it into blood; and that then the expulsive separates the superfluities of the blood, namely, the bile, and conveys them to the gall-bladder. See Galen (T. ii, 285, ed. Basil), and Avicenna (iii, 4, 1.) Aristotle held that the spleen is part of the hepatic system. (De Partibus Animal. iii, 7.) His commentator, Averrhoes, in like manner, considers the spleen as a second liver. (Collect. i, 9.) Their reasoning, on this point, appears to me exceedingly acute and conclusive. The following extract from Actuarius contains a clear exposition of ancient opinions on the subject we are treating of: “When the food in the stomach is changed and digested, the meseraic veins, which derive their origin from the liver, by their vein called ramalis, suck the stomach and intestines; and having emulged, as it were, the purer part, (namely, the food converted into chyle,) and having drawn it as if through a strainer, they convey it to the concave part of the liver, and deliver it over to the sanguificatory power. Here, then, if nothing impede it, when it is changed into blood, whatever is subtile and acrid is received by the gall-bladder, which is placed at the convex part of the liver, and attracts the bile; but whatever the blood possesses of a terrene and melancholic humour is attracted to the spleen, by some natural faculty, whereby every part attracts whatever suits its nature. Thirdly, the serous humour remains. It is attracted by the kidneys.” (De Urinis, § 4.) SECT. LXVIII.—DIAGNOSIS OF THE TEMPERAMENTS OF THE TESTICLES.