Page - 975 - in The Complete Aristotle

each of its three cavities it has blood, but the thinnest blood is what it has in its central cavity. Under the lung comes the thoracic diaphragm or midriff, attached to the ribs, the hypochondria and the backbone, with a thin membrane in the middle of it. It has veins running through it; and the diaphragm in the case of man is thicker in proportion to the size of his frame than in other animals. Under the diaphragm on the right-hand side lies the ‘liver’, and on the left- hand side the ‘spleen’, alike in all animals that are provided with these organs in an ordinary and not preternatural way; for, be it observed, in some quadrupeds these organs have been found in a transposed position. These organs are connected with the stomach by the caul. To outward view the spleen of man is narrow and long, resembling the self- same organ in the pig. The liver in the great majority of animals is not provided with a ‘gall-bladder’; but the latter is present in some. The liver of a man is round-shaped, and resembles the same organ in the ox. And, by the way, the absence above referred to of a gall-bladder is at times met with in the practice of augury. For instance, in a certain district of the Chalcidic settlement in Euboea the sheep are devoid of gall-bladders; and in Naxos nearly all the quadrupeds have one so large that foreigners when they offer sacrifice with such victims are bewildered with fright, under the impression that the phenomenon is not due to natural causes, but bodes some mischief to the individual offerers of the sacrifice. Again, the liver is attached to the great vein, but it has no communication with the aorta; for the vein that goes off from the great vein goes right through the liver, at a point where are the so-called ‘portals’ of the liver. The spleen also is connected only with the great vein, for a vein extends to the spleen off from it. After these organs come the ‘kidneys’, and these are placed close to the backbone, and resemble in character the same organ in kine. In all animals that are provided with this organ, the right kidney is situated higher up than the other. It has also less fatty substance than the left-hand one and is less moist. And this phenomenon also is observable in all the other animals alike. Furthermore, passages or ducts lead into the kidneys both from the great vein and from the aorta, only not into the cavity. For, by the way, there is a cavity in the middle of the kidney, bigger in some creatures and less in others; but there is none in the case of the seal. This latter animal has kidneys resembling in shape the identical organ in kine, but in its case the organs are more solid than in any other known creature. The ducts that lead into the kidneys lose themselves in the substance of the kidneys themselves; and the 975