Page:Greek Biology and Medicine.djvu/129

 THE FINAL SYSTEM: GALEN the heart and arteries; the physical pneutna (natural spirits) dwelling in the liver, and through the veins making blood and nourishing the body and its growth. The liver draws its supplies from the stomach and intestines. The life of the body fulfills itself in these three functions of the pneuma. The various parts — organs and tissues, solids and fluids — are thereby made into a whole, and united in their ultimate function of promoting the in- dividual's life. Health consists in their cooperation in proper proportions according to the age, sex and mode of life of the individual. Sickness is a disturbance of these proportions and of this harmonious working. Between sickness and health lies a condition of predis- position to one or another form of disease, due to the individual's constitution or tempera- ment. Inception, increase, summit, and recession make the four stages of acute disease. In addition to this rather Hippocratic view, the Galenic treatment proceeded from the principle that every disturbance of function necessarily implied a pathological affection of the parts in question. The physician first decides whether the power of the physis, or nature of [ 107]