64 
pltny's natural history. 
[Book XI. 
which is the case also with aquatic birds, although they have 
short legs, as well as with those which have hooked talons. 
CHIP. 68. — thetheoat; the gullet; the stomach. 
Man only, and the swine, are subject to swellings in the 
throat, which are mostly caused by the noxious quality of the 
water^^ which they drink. The upper part of the gullet is called 
the fauces, the lower the stomach. By this name is understood 
a fleshy concavity, situate behind the tracheal artery, and join- 
ing the vertebral column ; it extends in length and breadth 
like a sort of chasm.^^ Those animals which have no gullet 
have no stomach either, nor yet any neck or throat, fishes, for 
example ; and in all these the mouth communicates immedi- 
ately with the belly. The sea- tortoise has neither tongue 
nor teeth ; it can break anything, however, with the sharp 
edge of its muzzle. After the tracheal artery there is the 
oesophagus, which is indented with hard asperities resembling 
bramble- thorns, for the purpose of levigating the food, the in- 
cisions^^ gradually becoming smaller as they approach the belly. 
The roughness at the very extremity of this organ strongly re- 
sembles that of a blacksmith's file 
CHAP. 69. — THE heart; the blood; the vital spirit. 
In all other- animals but man the heart is situate in the 
middle of the breast ; in man alone it is placed just below 
the pap on the left-hand side, the smaller end terminating in 
a point, and bearing outward. It is among the fish only that 
this point is turned towards the mouth. It is asserted that 
the heart is the first amoDg the viscera that is formed in the 
foetus, then the brain, and last of all, the eyes : it is said, too, 
that the eyes are the first organs that die, and the heart the 
very last of all. The heart also is the principal seat of the heat 
of the body ; it is constantly palpitating, and moves as though 
it were one animal enclosed within another. It is also enve- 
^- Snow-water, we know, is apt to produce goitre. 
Stomachus." More properly, the oesophagus, or ventricle. 
Lacunae modo, 
^5 Or turtle. It has a tongue, and though it has no teeth, the jaws are 
edged with a horny substance like the bills of birds. 
" Crenis" is read for " renis otherwise the passage is unintelligible : 
it is still most probably in a corrupt state. 
