Page - 1312 - in The Complete Aristotle

2 Almost all sanguineous animals have a gall-bladder. In some this is attached to the liver, in others separated from that organ and attached to the intestines, being apparently in the latter case no less than in the former an appendage of the lower stomach. It is in fishes that this is most clearly seen. For all fishes have a gall-bladder; and in most of them it is attached to the intestine, being in some, as in the Amia, united with this, like a border, along its whole length. It is similarly placed in most serpents There are therefore no good grounds for the view entertained by some writers, that the gall exists for the sake of some sensory action. For they say that its use is to affect that part of the soul which is lodged in the neighbourhood of the liver, vexing this part when it is congealed, and restoring it to cheerfulness when it again flows free. But this cannot be. For in some animals there is absolutely no gall-bladder at all—in the horse, for instance, the mule, the ass, the deer, and the roe; and in others, as the camel, there is no distinct bladder, but merely small vessels of a biliary character. Again, there is no such organ in the seal, nor, of purely sea- animals, in the dolphin. Even within the limits of the same genus, some animals appear to have and others to be without it. Such, for instance, is the case with mice; such also with man. For in some individuals there is a distinct gall-bladder attached to the liver, while in others there is no gall-bladder at all. This explains how the existence of this part in the whole genus has been a matter of dispute. For each observer, according as he has found it present or absent in the individual cases he has examined, has supposed it to be present or absent in the whole genus. The same has occurred in the case of sheep and of goats. For these animals usually have a gall-bladder; but, while in some localities it is so enormously big as to appear a monstrosity, as is the case in Naxos, in others it is altogether wanting, as is the case in a certain district belonging to the inhabitants of Chalcis in Euboea. Moreover, the gall-bladder in fishes is separated, as already mentioned, by a considerable interval from the liver. No less mistaken seems to be the opinion of Anaxagoras and his followers, that the gall-bladder is the cause of acute diseases, inasmuch as it becomes over-full, and spirts out its excess on to the lung, the blood-vessels, and the ribs. For, almost invariably, those who suffer from these forms of disease are persons who have no gall-bladder at all, as would be quite evident were they to be dissected. Moreover, there is no kind of correspondence between the amount of bile which is present in these diseases and the amount which is exuded. The most probable opinion is that, as the bile when it is present in any other part of the body is a mere residuum or a product of decay, so also when it is present in the region of the liver it is equally excremental and has no further use; just as is the case with the dejections of the stomach and intestines. For though even the residua are occasionally used by nature for 1312