Book 4
1
The liver, which starts from the actual partition under the praecordia on the right side, is concave within, convex without; its projecting part rest lightly on the stomach, and it is divided into four lobes. Outside its lower part the gall-bladder adheres to it: but the spleen to the left is not connected to the same partition, but to the intestine; in texture it is soft and loose, moderately long and thick; and it hardly projects at all from beneath the ribs into the belly, but is hidden under them for the most part. Now the foregoing are joined together. The kidneys on the other hand are different; they adhere to the loins above the hips, being concave on one surface, on the other convex; they are both vascular, have ventricles, and are covered by coats.
1
These then are the situations of the viscera. Now the gullet, which is the commencement of the intestines, is sinewy; beginning at the seventh spinal vertebra, it makes a junction in the region of the praecordia with the stomach. And the stomach, which is the receptacle of the food, consists of two coats; and it is placed between the spleen and the liver, both overlapping it a little. There are also fine membranes by which these three are interconnected, and they are joined to that partition, which I have described above as transverse.
