| [p. 367]madness be constant, these are the causes
thereof. But if terrors and fears assail, they are connected with
derangement of the brain, and derangement is owing to its being heated.
And it is heated by bile when it is determined to the brain along
the bloodvessels running from the trunk; and fear is present until
it returns again to the veins and trunk, when it ceases. He is grieved
and troubled when the brain is unseasonably cooled and contracted
beyond its wont. This it suffers from phlegm, and from the same affection
the patient becomes oblivious. He calls out and screams at night when
the brain is suddenly heated. The bilious endure this. But the phlegmatic
are not heated, except when much blood goes to the brain, and creates
an ebullition. Much blood passes along the aforesaid veins. But when
the man happens to see a frightful dream and is in fear as if awake,
then his face is in a greater glow, and the eyes are red when the
patient is in fear. And the understanding meditates doing some mischief,
and thus it is affected in sleep. But if, when awakened, he returns
to himself, and the blood is again distributed along the veins, it
ceases.
In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest
power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which
emanate from the air, when it (the brain) happens to be in a sound state.
But the air supplies sense to it. And the eyes, the ears, the tongue
and the feet, administer such things as the brain cogitates. For in
as much as it is supplied with air, does it impart sense to the body.
It is the brain which is the messenger to the understanding. For when
the man draws the breath (pneuma) into himself, it passes first to the brain,
and thus the air is distributed to the rest of the body, leaving in
the brain its acme, and whatever has sense and understanding. For
if it passed first to the body and last to the brain, then having
left in the flesh and veins the judgment, when it reached the brain
it would be hot, and not at all pure, but mixed with the humidity
from flesh and blood, so as to be no longer pure.
Wherefore, I say, that it is the brain which interprets the understanding.
But the diaphragm has obtained its name (frenes) from accident and
usage, and not from reality or nature, for I know no power which it
possesses, either as to
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