ON YOUTH AND OLD AGE, ON LIFE AND DEATH, ON BREATHING [7]
and in;- their flesh has tubes Bloodless, that stretch towards the body's outmost edge, Which, at their mouths, full many frequent channels pierce, Cleaving the extreme nostrils through; thus, while the gore Lies hid, for air is cut a thoroughfare most plain. And thence, whenever shrinks away the tender blood, Enters the blustering wind with swelling billow wild. But when the blood leaps up, backward it breathes. As when With water-clock of polished bronze a maiden sporting, Sets on her comely hand the narrow of the tube And dips it in the frail-formed water's silvery sheen; Not then the flood the vessel enters, but the air, Until she frees the crowded stream. But then indeed Upon the escape runs in the water meet. So also when within the vessel's deeps the water Remains, the opening by the hand of flesh being closed, The outer air that entrance craves restrains the flood At the gates of the sounding narrow, upon the surface pressing, Until the maid withdraws her hand. But then in contrariwise Once more the air comes in and water meet flows out. Thus to the to the subtle blood, surging throughout the limbs, Whene'er it shrinks away into the far recesses Admits a stream of air rushing with swelling wave, But, when it backward leaps, in like bulk air flows out.
This then is what he says of respiration. But, as we said, all animals that evidently respire do so by means of the windpipe, when they breathe either through the mouth or through the nostrils. Hence, if it is of this kind of respiration that he is talking, we must ask how it tallies with the explanation given. But the facts seem to be quite opposed. The chest is raised in the manner of a forge-bellows when the breath is drawn in-it is quite reasonable that it should be heat which raises up and that the blood should occupy the hot region-but it collapses and sinks down, like the bellows once more, when the breath is let out. The difference is that in a bellows it is not by the same channel that the air is taken in and let out, but in breathing it is. But, if Empedocles is accounting only for respiration through the nostrils, he is much in error, for that does not involve the nostrils alone, but passes by the channel beside the uvula where the extremity of the roof of the mouth is, some of the air going this way through the apertures of the nostrils and some through the mouth, both when it enters and when it passes out. Such then is the nature and magnitude of the difficulties besetting the theories of other writers concerning respiration. 14
We have already stated that life and the presence of soul involve a certain heat. Not even the digesting process to which is due the nutrition of animals occurs apart from soul and warmth, for it is to fire that in all cases elaboration is due. It is for this reason, precisely, that the primary nutritive soul also must be located in that part of the body and in that division of this region which is the immediate vehicle of this principle. The region in question is intermediate between that where food enters and that where excrement is discharged. In bloodless animals it has no name, but in the sanguineous class this organ is called the heart. The blood constitutes the nutriment from which the organs of the animal are directly formed. Likewise the bloodvessels must have the same originating source, since the one exists for the other's behoof-as a vessel or receptacle for it. In sanguineous animals the heart is the starting-point of the veins; they do not traverse it, but are found to stretch out from it, as dissections enable us to see. Now the other psychical faculties cannot exist apart from the power of nutrition (the reason has already been stated in the treatise On the Soul), and this depends on the natural fire, by the union with which Nature has set it aglow. But fire, as we have already stated, is destroyed in two ways, either
This then is what he says of respiration. But, as we said, all animals that evidently respire do so by means of the windpipe, when they breathe either through the mouth or through the nostrils. Hence, if it is of this kind of respiration that he is talking, we must ask how it tallies with the explanation given. But the facts seem to be quite opposed. The chest is raised in the manner of a forge-bellows when the breath is drawn in-it is quite reasonable that it should be heat which raises up and that the blood should occupy the hot region-but it collapses and sinks down, like the bellows once more, when the breath is let out. The difference is that in a bellows it is not by the same channel that the air is taken in and let out, but in breathing it is. But, if Empedocles is accounting only for respiration through the nostrils, he is much in error, for that does not involve the nostrils alone, but passes by the channel beside the uvula where the extremity of the roof of the mouth is, some of the air going this way through the apertures of the nostrils and some through the mouth, both when it enters and when it passes out. Such then is the nature and magnitude of the difficulties besetting the theories of other writers concerning respiration. 14
We have already stated that life and the presence of soul involve a certain heat. Not even the digesting process to which is due the nutrition of animals occurs apart from soul and warmth, for it is to fire that in all cases elaboration is due. It is for this reason, precisely, that the primary nutritive soul also must be located in that part of the body and in that division of this region which is the immediate vehicle of this principle. The region in question is intermediate between that where food enters and that where excrement is discharged. In bloodless animals it has no name, but in the sanguineous class this organ is called the heart. The blood constitutes the nutriment from which the organs of the animal are directly formed. Likewise the bloodvessels must have the same originating source, since the one exists for the other's behoof-as a vessel or receptacle for it. In sanguineous animals the heart is the starting-point of the veins; they do not traverse it, but are found to stretch out from it, as dissections enable us to see. Now the other psychical faculties cannot exist apart from the power of nutrition (the reason has already been stated in the treatise On the Soul), and this depends on the natural fire, by the union with which Nature has set it aglow. But fire, as we have already stated, is destroyed in two ways, either