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BOOK TWO
PART 2
[p. 125]wider and those of the bile-ducts
This was the characteristically "anatomical" explanation of bile-secretion made by Erasistratus. cf. p. 170, note 2. Why, then says Galen, does not urine, rather than bile, enter the bile-ducts?
narrower, then it is clear that this watery and serous superfluity, too, will run out into the bile-ducts quicker than does the bile, exactly in proportion as it is thinner than the bile! How is it, then, that it does not run out? "Because," it may be said, "urine
is thicker than bile!" This was what one of our Erasistrateans ventured to say, herein clearly disregarding the evidence of his senses, although he had trusted these in the case of the bile and blood. For, if it be that we are to look on bile as thinner than blood because it runs more, then, since the serous residue
Urine, or more exactly, blood-serum.
passes through fine linen or lint or a or a sieve more easily even than does bile, by these tokens bile must also be thicker than the watery fluid. For here, again, there is no argument which will demonstrate that bile is thinner than the serous superfluities.
But when a man shamelessly goes on using circumlocutions, and never acknowledges when he has had a fall, he is like the amateur wrestlers, who, when they have been overthrown by the experts and are lying on their backs on the ground, so far from recognizing their fall, actually seize their victorious adversaries by the
necks and prevent them from getting away, thus supposing themselves to be the winners!
