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Aristotle - On The Parts Of Animals
Atec Февраль 16 2008 20:01:06
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. This is because the region of
the heart and of the lung is hotter and richer in blood in man than in
any other animal; and in men than in women. This again explains why
man, alone of animals, stands erect. For the heat, overcoming any
opposite inclination, makes growth take its own line of direction,
which is from the centre of the body upwards. It is then as a
counterpoise to his excessive heat that in man's brain there is this
superabundant fluidity and coldness; and it is again owing to this
superabundance that the cranial bone, which some call the Bregma, is
the last to become solidified; so long does evaporation continue to
occur through it under the influence of heat. Man is the only
sanguineous animal in which this takes place. Man, again, has more
sutures in his skull than any other animal, and the male more than the
female. The explanation is again to be found in the greater size of
the brain, which demands free ventilation, proportionate to its
bulk. For if the brain be either too fluid or too solid, it will not
perform its office, but in the one case will freeze the blood, and
in the other will not cool it at all; and thus will cause disease,
madness, and death. For the cardiac heat and the centre of life is
most delicate in its sympathies, and is immediately sensitive to the
slightest change or affection of the blood on the outer surface of the
brain.
The fluids which are present in the animal body at the time of birth
have now nearly all been considered
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