Kitap 3
8
Now the original task we set before ourselves was to demonstrate that the retentive faculty exists in every one of the organs, just as in the previous book we proved the existence of the attractive, and, over and above this, the alterative faculty. Thus, in the natural course of our argument, we have demonstrated these four faculties existing in the stomach — the attractive faculty in connection with swallowing, the retentive with digestion, the expulsive with vomiting and with the descent of digested food into the small intestine — and digestion itself we have shown to be a process of alteration.
PART 9
9
Concerning the spleen, also, we shall therefore have no further doubtscf. p. 205. as to whether it attracts what is proper to it, rejects what is foreign, and has a natural power of altering and retaining all that it attracts; nor shall we be in any doubt as to the liver, veins, arteries, heart, or any other organ. For these four faculties have been shown to be necessary for every part which is to be nourished; this is why we have called these faculties the handmaids of nutrition. For just as human faeces are most pleasing to dogs, so the residual matters from the liver are, some of them, proper to the spleenThus Galen elsewhere caalls the spleen a mere emunctory (ἐκμαγεῖον) of the liver. cf. p. 214, note 1., others to the gall-bladder, and others to the kidneys.
PART 10
