Diexodus medica de hepatis

48. Nor did benign Nature leave the τὸ ἓν the one in the construction of the principal organ, but willed it to be perfused with vital spirit and heat, and for the innate heat of the hollow seat to be tempered and ventilated by pulsation, with offspring offered by the arteries to the omentum; but the convex part is ventilated by the motion of the septum and the passage of the aorta.

49. It has, however, a sense of opposing qualities by some tactile quality through the tunic, into which a nerve is distributed by small branches, arising from those that creep to the right ribs from the sixth conjunction likely referring to the sixth pair of cranial/spinal nerves; but it obtains a more perfect sense of its own lack, which otherwise enters its substance; this is offspring of the same conjunction, but it is propagated through the upper orifice, so that it might draw the complaining minister with it into sympathy.

50. And this is the character of the soul in this viscus, which expresses in every part the use we have shown; the remaining protuberances and sinuses in the hollow part exist for the sake of strengthening and embracing the vessels.

51. Therefore, since it is an αἵματο ποιητικὸν blood-making organ, as long as αἵματωσις sanguification occurs in the way that the nature of the parts demands, so long does it behave according to nature; which state is health, and is placed in the thick substance, the number, magnitude, position, and figure of the parts, and in their union as it is prescribed by the law of Nature.

52. Such a natural state is twofold: one is constant, and is changed with difficulty by the contrary, so that it is present as a habit; the other is only an imperfect disposition, which, whether it follows or precedes the habit of health, is alterable by almost any occasion.

53. That which exists as a habit has a breadth consisting of extremes and a middle; but that which is placed in the middle, perfect in all numbers, is most praiseworthy, in which the best is present.