Kitap 3
7
And Asclepiades is absurd when he states that the quality of the digested food never shows itself either in eructations or in the vomited matter, or on dissection.Asclepiades held that there was no such thing as real qualitative change; the food was merely broken up into its consituent molecules, and absorbed unaltered. cf. p. 49, note 5. For of course the mere fact that the food smells of the body shows that it has undergone gastric digestion. But this man is so foolish that, when he hears the Ancients saying that the food is converted in the stomach into something good, he thinks it proper to look out not for what is good in its possible effects, but for what is good to the taste : this is like saying that apples (for so one has to argue with him) become more apple-like [in flavour] in the stomach, or honey more honey-like!
