Nature of organs

Know that the Creator, may his glory be exalted, has given to every animal and every organ such a nature as is most suitable for him and most suitable for his actions and life circumstances, in accordance with what his capabilities allow, but confirmation of this is the task of the philosopher, and not doctor And the Creator gave man the most balanced nature that can exist in this world, in accordance with the forces through which he acts and is affected. The creator also gave each organ a nature most suitable for it, and he made some organs hotter, others colder, some drier, others wetter.

The hottest thing in the body is the pneuma, as well as the heart, which is the place where pneuma arises. Then comes the blood. Although blood originates in the liver, it is closely connected with the heart and therefore acquires an amount of heat that the liver does not have. Next comes the liver, for it is like a blood clot, then the lungs and then the meat. The meat is less hot than the lungs, as it is pierced by threads of cold nerves. Then come the muscles. They are less hot than plain meat because they are riddled with nerves and ligaments.

Then comes the spleen, since there is a blood clot in it, then the kidneys, because the amount of blood in them is small. Then there are rows of beating vessels, which are warm, not because they have a nervous substance, but because they are heated by the pneum and blood contained in the arteries. Then follow rows of calm vessels, which are warmed by blood alone, and after that - the skin of the palm, balanced in nature. The coldest thing in the body is mucus, then internal lard, fat, hair, bones, cartilage, ligaments, tendons, membranes, nerves, spinal cord, brain and skin.

And the wettest thing in the body is mucus, then blood, fat, internal fat, brain, spinal cord, nipple and testicular meat, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, muscles and skin.

This is the order that Galen established. However, you should know that the lungs, by their substance and innate properties, are not very wet, for each organ, by its innate nature, is similar to what it feeds on, and by its accidental nature, it is similar to what accumulates in it, and the lungs feed the hottest blood, most of which is mixed with yellow bile. This is exactly what Galen teaches us. But a large amount of moisture accumulates in the lungs from the rising body vapors and the juices descending to the lungs. Since this is the case, the liver, by its inherent moisture, is much more humid than the lungs, and the lungs are more wet. However, constant wetting makes the lungs wetter in their substance as well. In the same way, in a certain sense, you should understand the state of mucus and blood. The fact is that mucus is moistened in most cases by wetting from the outside, and blood is moistened by concentrating moisture in its substance, although natural watery mucus itself is sometimes wetter than blood. When the blood reaches full maturity, a large amount of the moisture that was in the natural watery mucus disappears from it, which has turned into blood. Subsequently, you will learn that natural watery mucus is blood that has undergone some transformation.

As for the driest thing in the body, it is the hair, for the hair consists of smoky vapor, from which the admixture of vapor contained in it has been released, and the pure principle of the smoke has thickened. Next come the bones, for bones are the hardest organ, but bones are moist than hair, since bones arise from the blood, and their location is such that they absorb natural moisture and take possession of it. Therefore, bones serve as food for many animals, but not a single animal feeds on hair, or perhaps only a few of them do. For example, it is believed that bats digest hair and easily swallow it. However, if we take an equal amount of bones and hair and distill them in a flask and in an alembic, then more liquid and fat will flow out of the bones, and they will remain less heavy than hair. This means that bones are wetter than hair.

Next to bones in terms of dryness are cartilages, then come ligaments, tendons, membranes, arteries, veins, motor nerves, heart, sensory nerves. The motor nerves are at the same time much colder and much drier than the balanced organ, and the sensory nerves are colder, but they are not much drier than the balanced organ. On the contrary, they are probably close to the balanced organ in dryness, and also not very far from it in coldness. Next comes the skin.

Paragraph three. About natures of different ages and genders

There are four ages in total: the age of growth, which is also called “the age of youth” and ends at about thirty years the age of stunting, that is, the age of youth, which ends around thirty-five or forty years the age of decline while maintaining some of the strength, that is, the age of mature people, which ends around sixty years, and the age of decline with the appearance of weakening of strength, that is, the age of old age, which continues until the end of life. But the age of adolescence is divided into the age of infancy, when the organs of the newborn are not yet prepared for movement and for standing up, and the age of childhood - and this is the period after standing up and before the strengthening of the organs, when the teeth have not yet completely fallen out and grown. Then follows the age of adolescence, that is, the period after the growth and appearance of molars, but before puberty then - the age of adolescence and puberty, lasting until the youth’s face is covered with down then the age of the youth, which continues until growth stops.

The nature of children - I mean the period from infancy to adolescence - is similar in fervor to a balanced one, and surpasses a balanced one in moisture. There is disagreement among ancient doctors regarding the ardent nature of a child and a youth. Some believe that the child's fervor is stronger and therefore he grows more and his natural functions - appetite and digestion - are stronger and longer lasting, moreover, the innate warmth that children received from the father's seed is more collected and newer.

Others think that the innate warmth is much greater in young men, since their blood is more abundant and stronger, which is why their nose bleeds more often and more often. In addition, the nature of young men tends more towards yellow bile, and the nature of children tends more towards mucus. In young men, the movements are stronger, and the movement is carried out by heat, and they absorb and digest food better, which is also carried out by heat. As for appetite, it supposedly exists not due to warmth, but due to coldness, therefore a “dog’s” appetite arises in most cases from the coldness of nature. Proof that young men digest food better is that they do not experience the same nausea, vomiting and indigestion that children experience from indigestion. And that the nature of young men is more prone to yellow bile is proven by the fact that all their illnesses are hot, such as three-day fever, and their vomiting is bilious. As for children, most of their illnesses are wet and cold, and their fevers are mucous, and most of what they vomit is mucus. As for growth in children, it does not occur due to intense heat, but due to the significant moisture in their nature. A more frequent manifestation of appetite in children also indicates a lack of warmth in their nature.

This is the teaching of the doctors of both mentioned groups and their evidence. As for Galen, he objects to both at once. Namely, he believes that warmth in children and youth is basically the same, but in children the warmth is greater in quantity and less in quality, that is, in severity, and the warmth in youth is less in quantity and greater in quality, that is, in severity .

The proof of this, as Galen says, is this: one must imagine that a certain heat, exactly the same in quantity, or, in other words, a thin hot body, identical in quality and quantity, sometimes spreads in a moist, abundant substance, such as water, and sometimes it spreads in a dry, scanty substance, such as in stone. Since this is so, we find that the hot watery one is greater in quantity and softer in quality, the hot stony one is less in quantity and sharper in quality. In accordance with this, judge the existence of a hot principle in children and young men. Children are born from a seed that abounds in heat, and with this heat no circumstances occur that would extinguish it. After all, the child is constantly developing, gradually growing and has not yet stopped growing how can he go backward in his development?

As for the young man, there are no reasons that would increase his warmth, and there are also no reasons that extinguish it. On the contrary, this warmth is preserved in the young man by moisture, which decreases both in quality and quantity until he enters the age of decline. The indicated scarcity of moisture is considered scarce not in relation to heat retention, but in relation to growth.

At first the moisture seems to exist in quantities sufficient for both this amount  conserves warmth and also adds growth. Then, eventually, the amount of moisture becomes insufficient to do both of these things, and then it ends up in such an amount that it is not enough even for one of them. Meanwhile, the amount of moisture should be average so that it is enough for at least one of these two things without the other.

It would be absurd, however, to say that there is enough moisture for growth and not enough to maintain natural warmth. How can a factor increase anything if it cannot preserve the basis of the thing being increased? It turns out that this amount of moisture is only enough to maintain natural warmth, and not enough for growth. And it is known that the age when this takes place is the age of youth.

As for the statement of representatives of another part of the doctors that growth in children occurs due to moisture alone, and not warmth, this statement is false. The fact is that humidity is the matter of growth, and matter is affected and takes on certain qualities not on its own, but when an active force acts on it. Here, the active force is, by the will of the great, glorious Allah, the soul or nature, and this force acts only through a certain instrument, namely, innate warmth. The assertion of these doctors that the large appetite in children is explained only by the coldness of nature is also false. After all, with an unhealthy appetite, which comes from coldness of nature, food is not digested and does not nourish the body. And in children, food absorption occurs in the best way in most cases. Without this, children would not have introduced into themselves, in order to grow, more metabolic substances, that is, food, than are absorbed into the body. Meanwhile, it happens that children do not digest food well due to gluttony and because they are little accustomed to what they eat, they absorb bad, raw things in large quantities, and after that they make harmful movements. Therefore, children accumulate more than their fair share of excess in their bodies, and their bodies, especially their lungs, are in greater need of cleansing. Because of this, the pulse in children is more frequent and intense than in adults, and it does not have fullness, since the strength of children is not fully developed.

Here is a discussion about the nature of a child and a youth, in accordance with how Galen undertook to present it, and we explained it from his words.

Then you should know that after a period of stagnation, heat begins to decrease due to the absorption of its matter, that is, moisture, by the surrounding air. In this, the air is facilitated by the innate warmth, which is also located inside the body, and is helped by the mental and physical movements necessary in everyday life, as well as the powerlessness of human nature to constantly resist this. After all, all bodily forces are finite, as set out in natural science, and their action when substances are introduced into the body is not constant. If these forces were also not finite and would constantly introduce into the body in the same equal quantity a replacement for what was absorbed into it, and absorption occurs in the same quantity and constantly, every day increases, then the replacement would still not be able to completely resist the suction, and the suction would destroy the moisture. And how could this not be, when both of them mutually contribute to the occurrence of a lack of moisture and the reverse development of the body. And if so, then all this is necessary and must necessarily destroy matter and even extinguish heat, especially when another reason also contributes to the extinction of heat thanks to the help of matter, that is, extraneous moisture, which constantly arises due to the lack of replacement for digested food. It helps extinguish heat in two ways: firstly, it suffocates and floods the warmth, and secondly, it opposes its qualities to warmth, because this extraneous moisture is slimy and cold. The extinction of internal warmth is natural death, the time of which for each person, in accordance with his original nature, is postponed until the end of the period during which his strength ensures the preservation of moisture in the body. “For each of them there is a term named, and for each term there is a record,” but this period is different for individual people according to the differences in their nature.

These are cases of natural death, and there is another death - sudden. But this is a different matter, and everything has its own destiny.

So, from what has been said it follows that the body of children and young people is moderately hot, and the body of mature people and old people is cold. However, due to their growth, the body of children is more moist than balance requires, and this is recognized by experience, that is, by the softness of their bones and nerves, and also by inference, for they were until recently close to the seed and to the pneuma, similar to steam.

As for mature people and especially old people, they, being colder, are at the same time drier. This is known by experience by the hardness of their bones and the dryness of their skin and by inference, for long ago they were close to semen, to blood and to pneuma, like steam.

Further, the fiery quality is the same in children and young men, but the airiness and wateriness are greater in children.

Middle-aged people and old people have more earthiness than children and young men Old people have more of it than middle-aged people.

The balance of nature of a young man is higher than the balance of a child, but a young man, compared to a child, has a dry nature, and compared to an old man and a mature person, he has a hot nature. An old man is drier than a youth and a mature person by the nature of his main organs, but moister than them in relation to extraneous, wetting moisture.

As for the differences in the nature of people of different sexes, women are colder by nature than men, therefore they are inferior to men in the strength of their build and their nature is more moist. Due to the coldness of nature, women have a lot of residue in their bodies, and lack of bodily exercise makes the substance of their flesh more loose. Although meat in men is loose in relation to its combination with the substances it contains, due to its roughness it is more chilled than the vessels and threads of nerves passing through it.

Residents of northern countries have a more humid nature. People whose work involves water are wetter by nature, and those who do the opposite are the opposite. As for the characteristics of nature, we will talk about them when we talk about general and particular characteristics.