SECT, i] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 55 



the body, is consumed by the fire so that fresh rpocfir] is in its turn 

 required. 



It is important to note that the Hippocratic school was far more 

 akin in its general attitude to living things to modern physiology 

 than the Aristotelian and Galenic physiology. For no considerations 

 of final causes complicate the causal explanations of the Hippocratic 

 school, and the author of the irepl SmtV?/? indeed devotes seven chapters 

 to a detailed comparison of the processes of the body {a) with the 

 processes of the inorganic world both celestial and terrestrial, and 

 (b) with the processes used by men in the arts and crafts, such as 

 iron-workers, cobblers, carpenters and confectioners. These dis- 

 cussions present distinct mechanistic features. 



He then in Section 9 sets forth his theory of the formation of the 

 embryo. "Whatever may be the sex", he says, "which chance gives 

 to the embryo, it is set in motion, being humid, by fire, and thus it 

 extracts its nourishment from the food and breath introduced into 

 the mother. First of all this attraction is the same throughout because 

 the body is porous but by the motion and the fire it dries up and 

 solidifies — vtto Be r?)? Kivijcno^; Koi tov irvpoii ^rfpaiveTai koI arepeovraL 

 — as it solidifies, a dense outer crust is formed, and then the fire inside 

 cannot any more draw in sufficient nourishment and does not expel the 

 air because of the density of the surrounding surface. It therefore con- 

 sumes the interior humidity. In this way parts naturally solid being up 

 to a point hard and dry are not consumed to feed the fire but fortify 

 and condense themselves the more the humidity disappears — these 

 are called bones and nerves. The fire burns up the mixed humidity 

 and forwards development towards the natural disposition of the 

 body in this manner ; through the solid and dry parts it cannot make 

 permanent channels but it can do so through the soft wet parts, for 

 these are all nourishment to it. There is also in these parts a certain 

 dryness which the fire does not consume, and they become compacted 

 one to another. Therefore the most interior fire, being closed round 

 on all sides, becomes the most abundant and makes the most canals 

 for itself (for that was the wettest part) and this is called the belly. 

 Issuing out from thence, and finding no nourishment outside, it 

 makes the air pipes and those for conducting and distributing food. 

 As for the enclosed fire, it makes three circulations in the body and 

 what were the most humid parts become the venae cavae. In the 

 intermediate part the remainder of the water contracts and hardens 



