spirit and loves contention they seated nearer the head between the midriff and the neck; as it is the business of the reason to unite with it in forcibly repressing the desires, whenever they will not obey the mandate and word issuing from the citadel above.
The heart, which is the head and principle of the veins as well as the fountain of the blood that impetuously circulates through all the members, they placed in a kind of sentry-house, that, in case of any outburst of anger, being informed by the reason of any evil committed in its members, owing either to some foreign cause, or else internal passions, it (the heart) might transmit through all its channels the threatenings and exhortations of reason, so as once more to reduce the body to perfect obedience, and so permit what is the best within us to maintain supreme command.
But as the gods foreknew, with respect to the palpitation of the heart under the dread of danger and the excitement of passion, that all such swellings of the inflamed spirit would be produced by fire, they formed the lungs to be a sort of protection thereto; first of all, soft and bloodless, and next internally provided with cavities perforated like a sponge, in order to cool the breath which they receive, and give the heart easy respiration and repose in its excessive heat. On this account, then, they led the channels of the windpipe into the lungs, which they placed like a soft cushion round the heart, in order that when anger rises in it to an extreme height it might fall on some yielding substance, and, so getting cool, yield cheerfully and with less trouble to the authority of reason.
(Plato's "Timaeus," translated by Henry Davis.)
Alcmaeon, Empedocles, Diogenes of Apollonia, Anaxagoras
and Pausanias, whose names are mentioned above
in the list of eminent men who flourished during the golden
age of Greek history, are entitled to further consideration.
Alcmaeon of Crotona was a contemporary and disciple of
Pythagoras. He was specially devoted to the study of
anatomy and physiology, and is credited with the distinction
of having been the first person to dissect animals for
the purpose of learning the formation of the different parts
of their bodies. With the exception of a few fragments
that are to be found scattered throughout ancient medical
literature, Alcmaeon's writings have all been lost. The
discovery of the optic nerve is credited to him, and
