Book 5
21
EMPEDOCLES believes, that the joints of men begin to be formed from the thirty-sixth day, and their shape is completed in the nine and fortieth. Asclepiades, that male embryos, by reason of a greater natural heat, have their joints begun to be formed in the twenty-sixth day,— many even sooner,—and that they are completed in all their parts on the fiftieth day; the parts of the females are articulated in two months, but by the defect of heat are not consummated till the fourth; but the members of brutes are completed at various times, according to the commixture of the elements of which they consist.
Chapter XXII. OF WHAT ELEMENTS EACH OF THE MEMBERS OF US MEN IS COMPOSED.
22
EMPEDOCLES says, that the fleshy parts of us are constituted by the contemperation of the four elements in us; earth and fire mixed with a double proportion of water make the nerves; but when it happens that the nerves are refrigerated where they meet the air, then the nails are made; the bones are produced by two parts of water and the same of air, with four parts of fire and the same of earth, duly mixed together; sweat and tears flow from the liquefaction of these bodies of ours.
Chapter XXIII. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF SLEEP AND DEATH?
