Kitap 2
9
At this point, also, I would gladly have been able to ask Erasistratus whether his artistic Nature has not constructed any organ for clearing away a humour such as this. For whilst there are two organs for the excretion of urine, and another of considerable size for that of yellow bile, does the humour which is more pernicious than these wander about persistently in the veins mingled with the blood? Yet Hippocrates says, Dysentery is a fatal condition if it proceeds from black bile; while that proceeding from yellow bile is by no means deadly, and most people recover from it; this proves how much more pernicious and acrid in its potentialities is black than yellow bile. Has Erasistratus, then, not read the book, On the Nature of Man, any more than any of the rest of Hippocrates' writings, that he so carelessly passes over the consideration of the humours? Or, does the know it, and yet voluntarily neglect one of the finest studiesThe word theoria used here is not the same as our theory. It is rather a contemplation, the process by which a theory is arrived at. cf. p. 226, note 2. in medicine? Thus he ought not to have said anything about the spleen,Erasistratus on the uselessness of the spleen. cf. p. 143. nor have stultified himself by holding that an artistic Nature would have prepared so large an organ for no purpose. As a matter of fact, not a matter of fact, not only Hippocrates and Plato — who are no less authorities on Nature than is Erasistratus — say that this viscus also is one of those which cleanse the blood, but there are thousands of the ancient physicians and philosophers as well who are in agreement with them. Now, all of these the high and mighty Erasistratus affected to despise, and he neither contradicted them nor even so much as mentioned their opinion. Hippocrates, indeed, says that the spleen wastes in those people in whom the body is in good condition, and all those physicians also who base themselves on experienceThe Empirical school. cf. p. 193. agree with this. Again, in those cases in which the spleen is large and is increasing from internal suppuration, it destroys the body and fills it with evil humours;Enlargement and suppuration (?) of spllen associated with toxaemia or cacochymy. this again is agreed on, not only by Hippocrates, but also by Plato and many others, including the Empiric physicians. And the jaundice which occurs when the spleen is out of order is darker in colour, and the cicatrices of ulcers are dark. For, generally speaking, when the spleen is drawing the atrabiliaryLit. melancholic. humour into itself to a less degree than is proper, the blood is unpurified, and the whole body takes on a bad colour. And when does it draw this in to a less degree than proper? Obviously, when it [the spleen] is in a bad condition. Thus, just as the kidneys, whose function it is to attract the urine, do this badly when they are out or order, so also the spleen, which has in itself a native power of attracting an atrabiliary qualityi.e.. the combination of sensible qualities which we call black bile. cf. p. 8, note 3.,if it ever happens to be weak, must necessarily exercise this attraction badly, with the result that the blood becomes thicker and darker.
