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BOOK TWO
PART 9
[p. 215]quality that, if it were carried all over the body, it would do a certain amount of harm. For that which is decidedly thick and earthy in nature, and has entirely escaped alteration in the liver, is drawn by the spleen into itself
cf. p. 277, note 2.
; the other part which is only moderately thick, after being elaborated [in the liver], is carried all over the body. For the blood in many parts of the body has need of a certain amount of thickening, as also, I take it, of the fibres which it contains. And the use of these has been discussed by Plato,
Timaeus, 82 C-D.
and it will also be discussed by me in such of my treatises as may deal with the use of parts. And the blood also needs, not least, the yellow humour, which has as
yet not reached the extreme stage of combustion; in the treatises mentioned it will be pointed out what purpose is subserved by this.
Now Nature has made no organ for clearing away phlegm, this being cold and moist, and, as it were, half-digested nutriment; such a substance, therefore, does not need to be evacuated, but remains in the body and undergoes alteration there. And perhaps one cannot properly give the name of phlegm to the surplus-substance which runs down from the brain,
cf. p. 90, note 1. Ther term "catarrh" refers to this "running down," which was supposed to take place through the pores of the cribriform plate of the ethmoid into the nose.
but one should call it mucus [blenna] or coryza- as, in fact, it is actually termed; in any case it will be pointed out, in the treatise "On the Use of Parts," how Nature has provided for the evacuation of this
substance. Further, the device provided by Nature which ensures that the phlegm which forms in the stomach and intestines may be evacuated in the most rapid and effective way possible- this also will be described in that com-
