The Dialogue
on
NATURAL HEAT
This dialogue is between Acevedo, a student, and the famous Spanish Court Physician, Francisco Lopez de Villalobos. It is presented in a question-and-answer format and deals with the subject of the Natural or Innate Heat, known as Yang in TCM. The text appeared in a chapter of The Medical Works of Francisco Lopez de Villalobos, translated by George Gaskoin in 1870.
How can the milder natural heat,
Far more than elemental fire,?
Though this doth glow and flame much higher,
Prepare and cook all food we eat ?
Suppose we boil upon a forge
Both bread and meat for three days’ space,
It falls short of it in that case,
However much the flame we urge
Acevedo — Concerning natural heat which is common to all animals, have I listened to many a discussion among my fellows in the schools of medicine, and often do they make mention of the same, yet never could I learn if it were body, soul, or complexion, nor know I if it occupies the whole of the animal, or if it has its principium or birth in any special part or parts, and they lay to its account all that is done within the frame; me it strikes not yet in what wise ’tis so, for sometimes they will have it to be a sculptor or a limner of faces to the life; it comes and goes, grows and dwindles, they give more uses and offices than there be of days in the year, but never man set eyes upon it yet. Is it then a phantasy this animal heat, a sort of Robin Goodfellow or Will-o-the-Wisp, a bogiel or a scapegoat for the faculty ?
Villalobos. — In a question that has laid pretty long under the fail, you have started so many difficulties and false shows, that it would seem you would almost have us to understand there is no foundation for what is said concerning natural heat, a mere bubble of physicians and philosophers. And since to mere snatches of inquiry my answering could never serve, either for my satisfaction or your own in removing your so many scruples, I should desire, here as we stand, to set the thing plainly before you in a clear and intelligent manner. First, I would call the senses into court, and when once you knew the thing palpably, I should be able, I think, to resolve your questions one by one, till your difficulties were far less than now they appear to be. Any way, you shall be satisfied, or my deficiencies be shown.
Acevedo. — As for me, fain would I see my hand into this darkness, for indeed I do lose my way. Would that some kind Christian would take me by the hand.
Villalobos. — Give it here that hand. Thrust it into your bosom now.
Acevedo. — Forthwith I obey you, sir.
Villalobos. — Tell me, what is it that you feel ?
Acevedo. — I feel warmth, truly.
Villalobos. — Then I would have you know and confess that this you feel is animal heat, which indeed all animals enjoy so long as life doth last; and when there is such cold in the air that a big bonfire would not burn, or even if you stood in a plain with snow for miles around, there, there is natural heat; thrust your hand in your bosom and you shall find it so there. And if journeying among men at night by snowy mountain paths, toʻsave your life from cold you kill the beast that goes under you, and into his warm belly ripped you thrust both feet, as one has heard the tale, your life may thus be saved. This while they live all living have, and when they die they all turn cold.
Acevedo. — Then of necessity it is the soul (alma) that supplies us with natural heat ?
Villalobos. — No less.
Acevedo. — This is what I could never understand. For how is it possible that a thing should furnish us with heat which hath not heat in itself ? The soul is not any corporeal thing, nor is it subject to those qualities which bodies have. How then can it impart warmth by its presence, and maintain heat in the frame ?
Villalobos. — Some things there are communicating warmth, and yet not hot in themselves.
Acevedo. — What things, I pray you ? tell me that.
Villalobos. — The sun, the moon, and all the stars, which are not warm in themselves, as being no way affected by the contagion of elemental qualities, and yet do they engender heat in all that lies below; and also movement in its own nature is nothing warm, but a cause of heat that it is, by voice of all philosophers, for they say no movement can occur without the production of heat.
Acevedo. — I confess to that in corporeal things, but the soul (alma) you see is not a heavenly body to scatter down heat on all that’s underneath, nor has it movement, that I am aware of, for in itself it is immoveable. Tell us, then, of the soul, how does it become a cause of heat in the frame ?
Villalobos. — Through movement, it is movement causes heat. The soul, it is true, does not move of itself, and yet by its presence it occasions movement in the body.
Acevedo. — What shall we say, then, when the body is at rest ? Is there then no heat laid up in it ?
Villalobos. — Never once, while any life remains, does the body cease to move, either in itself or in some of its
members and parts, and so far as the body, we may say that it is never wholly at rest.
Acevedo. — What parts are these in the body that are so constantly engaged in movement ?
Villalobos. — The heart, the lungs, and chest, with all its tissues, and the belly, and all the pulsating veins, as well as those fine webs with which the last are interlaced.
Acevedo. — Is there nothing, then, in the body but what takes part in this movement ? and how is the heat of such parts provided for ? I pray you tell me that.
Villalobos. — Do you wind round me in this fashion to worm all out of me, and have it as your own ?
Acevedo. — In sooth, good sir, ’tis the game I aim at. And let it not anger you now.
Villalobos. — Well, you must know that the heart in its construction hath a double sinus or cavity, of which the one on the right side is charged with blood extra-ordinarily choice, such as might be fitted for the entertainment and support of so noble a substance, and in the left chamber is contained a subtle body, after the manner of air. In visible, celestial, and most pure this body is, wherein the highest aim of nature is proved to give it perfectness; for its sake was made the heart as its proper recipient, and all the other parts are for it, and to obey it; for it is the chiefest subject of the soul, and from it is communicated life, and all the virtues to the body in every part thereof. This is the Platonic philosophy, and the Peripatetics contest it not .
Acevedo. — How can you ascertain that the left sinus of the heart is filled with such a spirit, since no man, I believe, ever saw it ? How do you know ’tis so ?
Villalobos. — The thing is palpable: we know it by the touch .
Acevedo. — How by the touch ?
Villalobos. — Through the pulses. We cannot but be sensible that they hold within a subtle body, which makes them beat, and they never wholly cease from this till life is extinguished in the animal.
Acevedo. — How can you tell that the left sinus of the heart is full of this spirit ?
Villalobos. — Because after death it is found empty, and nature we know has made nothing fruitlessly. As if so
principal a member as the heart should show an empty cupboard, and not rather conceal some great treasure,
some exquisite substance to serve as principal residence for the soul, which could not otherwise remain. What warrants it the more is that we know the pulsating veins to be derived from thence, and in these we palpably do find the spirit goes, for in the pulses we have felt it bounding as aforesaid .
Acevedo. — In such sort that step by step you would have me to believe that from the heart proceeds the life, and also natural heat, and that from thence it is distributed to the body in every part thereof.
Villalobos. — Nothing short of it, as you have heard .
Acevedo. — A new light in philosophy, truly; all the scholars who have sucked in their principia do talk of it. This is of the very elements of medicine.
Villalobos. — I have brought you by the way and by the track which the great natural philosophers had skill to find, and which they were proud to tread in, and I have caused you to lay your hand on natural heat, and no less on vital spirit, in the comprehension of which you professed to find innumerable ambiguities and darknesses; and now it seems that you find it all correct and unassailable, all the scholars know as much, and the babes all suck it in. Thus it is ever with the ill informed, before they have learnt to know a thing it is nought, and when it is explained to them, oh ! then they knew it all along.
Acevedo. — What you say is but true. This time I confess the fault is gross. Far from thanking you as I ought, because you showed me what I was most in doubt of, I am here like the peasant that goes blubbering for his mule, and the man that shows it him he threatens with the stocks.
Villalobos. — Enough. As yet I have not declared the principal point, for fear you should cross me with some light questioning, much as indeed has occurred. You have inquired of me whence proceeds the natural heat such as pervades all the members during life. My answer is, that it reaches them from the heart, and I say further, that it flows through the channel of the pulsating veins, which come off, as I said before, direct from the heart, and they pass dividedly to every member of the body, having within that vital spirit that is so very warm in itself, with which they warm all the members and all the ends and corners of the body, and this they do with a suave and uniform heat, by help of which the nutritive faculty undertakes the digestive acts, and it is named natural heat as being natural to the animal, and not produced by any artificial means.
Acevedo. — You bring me forward to the light. True it is we hear these questions in the schools, but what with
prejudice, and what with defect of intelligence, only words do rumble in our ears, and the understanding has no savour from them any more than have clowns from their food, down it goes, and leaves nor delight nor thankful-ness. I now would be told how the heart and spirit come by the heat they have, sufficient not only to maintain the amount of warmth which is there, but also with its superfluity and excess to spread the same through flesh and bones, reaching to every part, and to all ends of the body which keep open doors to its approach. For suppose in such place a fire burning, ‘twould surely consume the material that feeds it, and scar and ruin the spot where it blazed. Shall we say this heat is of the soul (anima) ? that is a thing which I cannot understand; seeing, as I said before, the soul is neither fire nor flame, nor as to its qualities are they corporeal. But then again, I cannot but see that when the soul (alma) goes one, the heat doth soon subside; the body all turns cold, and so remains as clay. Where fore in so considerable a difficulty, there resides, according to my idea, some grand secret of philosophy.
Villalobos. — In what other shots you have made you have circled about the white, but this time you have driven, my friend, your shaft straight into the bull’s eye. Hence I am the more engaged to tell you all I know. Learn, then, that the principal cause of this heat is the soul (anima), which does everything in the body through instruments it brings in, to be employed in what are called the secondary actsl because primarily it gives existence to the body, which only by the soul doth become and continues what it is; but over and above this, the soul is cause of operations, all such as are done in the body, and this is secondary act. The instrument which nature employs to engender that heat which resides in the heart and spirit is no other than the incessant movement of the heart and pulses therefrom proceeding; because all movement, as we said before, is cause of actual heat, and that not alone in animals, but also with inanimate things. Just as from blows upon stone there spring forth sparks of fire, and with wood the same, and when a noble vessel sails in full career sparks are seen to strike about the prow out of the bosom of that very element that is able to extinguish flame. With animals the thing is more noticeable still, as is seen in the greyhound, at the end of its coursing it so steams with heat as pond nor river could allay it. In man the same is observed when he hurries his pace or mounts a hill. And the heart and pulses being always in movement the spirit cannot but heat from being contained within them, and none the less from this spirit being a body fine and delicate, of a nature such as might be expected to heat promptly, and the rather from its being pent up in a narrow room, and so it does heat in fact, in such sort that if by the instrumentality of the respirations and also by the movement itself there were not taken in cold air to temper its excess, in a short time it must blaze and burn right out. This would indeed be nothing short of suffocation, because in such a case the spirit aforesaid would be converted into fire, and in this way the animal would spend its last breath . So you see the air we take in by the breathing enters the lung, and this puffs away at the heart like a bellows. And then in its act of closing, the heart squeezes and drives forward the air it has received, which by that time has become heated enough, and then once more it loosens out to take in some fresh and cooling air. All this is done with such frequency and rapidity as is accommodated to the coming and going of the breath. Such is the behaviour of the heart and its dependencies every day of its life without strain or weariness because it is a natural movement like that of the heavens which in like manner is done without fatigue.
Acevedo. — I imagined the pulsation of the heart and that of the other organs of the breath, which we name
spiritual, only served for two offices — one being the taking in of the air for its refrigeration, the other office being concerned in the expulsion of the same after it has become warmed, as is found written in all medicine; for when the heart relaxes and dilates, it takes in cold air, this being hurried to fill up that vacuum which may not exist in nature, and then once more it shuts and drives from out of it the heated air as in your comparison of the bellows. But that such movement was the immediate cause of natural heat as observed by us in animals, ’tis a thing I never dreamt of. It is not taught in the schools nor have I seen it anywhere written.
Villalobos. — Aye, child of mine, neither is it mentioned by Jacobo di Forlivio, nor any of the nominalists, and what made you think, pray, that the spirit which has its dwelling in the heart possesses so much actual heat? that it should be necessary to temper it continually with exterior air, and the more since Galen never writ it down as hot of complexion and it is even called a temperate vapour.
Acevedo. — My impression was that the spirit of its own nature is so hot, that it hath need to be moderated by the breath. I know Avicenna says of it that it is the hottest thing there is in all the whole body of man.
Villalobos. — What Avicenna meant to say is, that it is more hot than any as to the actual quality, and so it really is, for it bestows heat on all the members; but as to the complexional quality he would say far different.
Acevedo. — He is there speaking of the complexional qualities of all the members.
Villalobos. — That is true, but he only writes as physician according to the judgment of the senses and not according to the naturality of things. For had he spoken as philosopher he would have expressed himself far otherwise. But in whatever way I look at it, even if the spirit in its natural complexion is so very hot, what necessity is there for the same to be cooled ?
Acevedo. — Lest it should be set on fire and consume itself with so much heat.
Villalobos. — If such were natural to the spirit rather than be so resolved it will be preserved by the heat as we find is the case with vipers and other very warm animals, the same are preserved by heat, even those of the fourth degree. But why do we search for examples when we find that fire doth consume and break down all that is before it, but not its own flame; this it ruins not, it rather maintains itself, persisting in its form and circle, which are also qualities it has; so that if the spirit finds a necessity to cool or temper any heat, this would scarcely be heat of its own, such heat as is native to it, but rather such as is renewed therein, as being the subject of that heat, which has to be imparted thence to every part of the body, just as the sun imparts both light and heat to every quarter of the universe. And, indeed, if you consider the thing well, there is no other part in the human frame to which nature could commit the task of spreading this heat through the frame, being at the same time the subject of it but only this vital spirit, because by reason of its delicacy it is fitted to receive heat rapidly, and by its lightness to convey it swiftly wherever it may be required, experiencing neither labour nor fatigue, because as one might say, it is appointed to it to visit all parts of the body and to give them all that life which but for it would fail them, and further to convey to them the natural heat without which they could never be warm nor execute what nature requires of them as already has been said. And if you can suggest any other immediate cause of natural heat which shall square with fact so well as doth this same with the incessant movement of the chiefest organs of the body, down goes my lance at once and I will surrender myself to your superior opinion.
Acevedo. — This indeed is something new: fruit not to be gathered on every wall. It would be well to add this,
methinks, to the problems you say you are subjecting to the press, for there is much of value in it, and it will be
esteemed accordingly, however that it might lose some thing of dignity by being delivered in the vulgar tongue.
Villalobos. — I have written all this in a book entitled ‘de potentia vitali,’ and set it forth in the Latin language, but your Spanish printer cares not for books in Latin . The author must lay down the cost out of his own pocket before hand, and I being no craftsman or vendor of books, think it a little too bad that I should be mulcted in toil, and perish in my substance too, and why ? only that those may be served who see but little value in my labourings; nay, there will always be of the children of rapacity carping at it, and snarling at the heels of him they rob.
Acevedo. — I go bail for a bookseller that shall not be a year in selling every copy that comes from the press in regard to the subject in hand. But tell me now, what could be nature’s intent in giving to the spirit so considerable a heat that it should need this unceasing and vigilant refreshment ? For both sleeping and waking we see the fresh air never cease to visit us by the breath, and to pass through the pulses to the frame, for the sake of refrigeration.
Villalobos. — Nature might have better answered your expectation, perhaps, if the heat which the spirit yields was only meant for its use, but it was necessary besides that there should be enough to furnish the whole body with heat, and so noble and delicate a substance as this spirit, could never bear the strain nor the effect of the heat provided for all, if not opportunely restored by such process of cooling.
Acevedo. — What so great need of all this heat in every part of the body ?
Villalobos. — An answer to this will not employ us long, for no argument has been more thrashed out than this; there is no physician or philosopher who does not know that natural heat was meant for the concoction of food,
which in the first instance is done in the stomach and belly, and then in the liver, veins, and heart; after which each member accomplishes its own particular concoction out of that share or ration that comes to it; which process is ever conformable to the natural appetite and gust of such parts, varying as they do vary in kind. And if it were not for this heat all the blood would set in the body and coagulate; it could never run through the large veins, much less through those of smallest size, which ramify everywhere through all divisions of the limbs and organs, and never are they allowed to be dry, but incessantly drop and distil sap and green diet, and the heat is as truly kept up in them as we see maintained the flame of the candle by fat that clings to the wick. And in fine this heat was made for thousand other uses which we have no time nor need to describe.
Acevedo. — I confess myself more than satisfied in the discourse we have had, for already I seem to know about natural heat and its causes, the oven where it is made hot, and the pipes along which it sallies to all interior and exterior parts, and also I see the purposes for which it was contrived, and all made so plain and clear, I seem to have known it with my eyes, and to have touched it with my hands. But one thing puzzles me yet, long since ’tis on my mind .
Villalobos. — What is that ?
Acevedo. — It is said that through the organs of the breath and through the pulsating veins there enters into the heart fresh air, with which there is attempered the spirit that dwells therein, so that this may not choke nor be resolved by the so great heat which it contains, and this air enters by the mouth and nostrils into the lungs, and thence it gets to the heart.
Villalobos. — Pretty much so, in fact.
Acevedo. — And if the said air should fail to come, the spirit then chokes, burnt out of a sudden, and so the animal dies.
Villalobos. — What you say is true.
Acevedo. — Well then, explain me this. The babe yet in the womb hath its mouth and nostrils stopped, but were they opened a span wide, the place it lies in is so confined and hot, that if any man had his head in the like he would surely undergo suffocation. I would ask how the little wretch contrives to live and thrive for so many months and not be choked the while, if it be true, as you say, that fresh air is uncommonly necessary. We observe that after the babe has escaped from the womb, if the parent overlays it, or crams it in feeding with thick food, or if she is unhandy with the breast, or covers the mouth with the bedclothes without sufficient care, nay, if any way the mouth and nostrils are stopped, the little thing is like to choke. What reason can you give for its choking like that when it is out of the womb, and yet its life goes on very well in that so close and suffocating place ?
Villalobos. — ‘Tis well thought of by you, and not hackneyed either. As to this, some have looked on it as a miracle, and some lay it to qualities that are occult. If one might answer in that way concerning natural things, adieu philosophy ! all inquiry might be stayed at once by saying that such and such was only one miracle more, that God willed it so, and the like, and then indeed the merest rustic might on the same bench with Aristoteles and Plato, and with more of truth, may be, on his side. My idea of it is simply this: while the babe is in the womb there is no need for its heart to engender so much heat that it would possibly choke, and resolve the vital spirit which is contained therein, whence that movement of dilatation and compression which takes place in the heart and other parts which pulsate, hath need to be little or none, so long, at least, as the babe is in the womb.
Acevedo. — Whence then proceeds the heat by which the nutritive power in the unborn babe accomplishes its
digestion and other operations ?
Villalobos. — It is derived from the mother, in whom the natural heat serves both for herself and child. The veins
of mother and offspring are so interlaced and inwrought that her natural acts include those of the child, even as if it were a limb of hers: and just as the stomach of the child lies unemployed in function until it is born into the world, and takes in food by the mouth; in the like manner the heart is still and functionless until the mouth of the child, as I have said, begins to imbibe its food, and by the mouth and nostrils breath is also taken in, so as to set the heart a-going, and to engender that natural heat which is all the more necessary, since now the babe first misses the heat it had from the mother. And supposing that in the womb the heart of the offspring did need some degree of refreshment, this necessity is yet not so great but that the small amount of air may suffice which reaches it through the pulsating veins of the mother: the same have already been mentioned by us as intermarried and inwrought with those of her offspring
Acevedo. — And when the babe is just born into the world, how does it know that it should take in fresh air, which in the womb it did so well without ? and what first instructs it to breathe ?
Villalobos. — It is lessoned by the same schoolmistress as teaches it to suck the breast, although during its stay
in the womb the infant had no practice in this: it is nature which teaches it, the vital and nutritive faculties being the means which nature employs.
Acevedo. — But this movement of the heart and members of the spirit, what agent compels them ? for to my sense and apprehension you cannot say the soul (anima) does it, since of itself the soul neither has such skill, nor concerns itself in this; and even while we sleep the movement is the same, nay, it occurs during apoplexy, and even when our attention is turned away from it, and it is generally removed from the direction of the will.
Villalobos. — All this is effected by the vital principle (potencia), the suggestion of which the physicians have
borrowed, and not inconsiderately, from the philosophers
Acevedo. — How does such power then act ?
Villalobos. — It does all so naturally and with such seeming subtlety, as if it knew what it was about, and what it had to do, by headwork. Already you are informed by what proceeds that the nutritive power (potencia) doth operate by four virtues which it hath. First in order is the attractive virtue, by which nature acquires and imbibes a certain amount of sustenance. The second is the retentive, by which she fixes it, and which operates until it is dealt and done with. The third is the digestive, by which digestion is performed on the food. The fourth is the expulsive virtue, through which she voids and ejects all surplus or inconvenient thing. All this is seen in the child at its birth, because by the attractive virtue the stomach draws in and gets the milk, and with the retentive detains it, not parting with the aliment until it has been subject to digestion; by the digestive virtue the digestive process is performed, and the stomach partakes of all that agrees with it, and lastly, by the expulsive virtue the stomach rids itself of whatever it may not consider useful.
Acevedo. — All this we have heard explained in the fore going problem.
Villalobos. — You say true, but it is not amiss to return to it once again, that you may be better prepared for what I have next to say. Know, then, that just as the nutritive power of an animal, and also of a plant, naturally operates by these four virtues, without intention or consciousness, in such wise the vital power of animals operates with the two which are here in question quite naturally, with no kind of knowledge of what it does. Because just as in the members that are fed and nourished, there is the attractive virtue that obtains present material, and also the expulsive, which gets rid of all noisomeness and excess, so in the organs of the breath , there is the attractive virtue as to the cold air, and the expulsive as to the warm air, and neither of them knows what it does. And with these two virtues, the heart opens and makes a bag of itself, like the bellows, to take in cold air, and then it shuts and
squeezes on purpose to emit and eject the heated air. And since we do not marvel at the natural movements in the organs of nutrition, which attract thither to them all they require, and reject and dismiss all they find no use for, why should we marvel at the natural movements which the heart exhibits when it draws in cold air to launch it forth subsequently and orderly as heated air; because all such movements, certainly not voluntary, otherwise than natural, were bestowed on animals in their kind, not otherwise than on the elements were bestowed such movements as they have, and such as they exhibit in the order of their generations.
Acevedo. — I must confess myself satisfied as to what has occupied us. But now I am curious to learn why the doctors call it celestial, this natural heat ?
Villalobos. — If I do not err, it may rightly be called celestial because it does not proceed from element, but is engendered in the heart by that unceasing movement which is never stilled until life departs : for there is no movement of corruptible bodies in all the whole of nature that so nearly answers to the movement of heavenly bodies as does the movement of the heart and pulsating veins; because they move as the heavens without wearying or irksomeness, and the heart moves according to its parts, always without shifting its place, and so far differing from the heavens, and the pulses move with the movement of the primum mobile, which is the heart; and they are all entertained in this motion by something that is not mobile at all, and that is nature’s self; and also the heart and the pulses contain within them a body,very resembling the celestial bodies, which indeed is the spirit, and this spirit receives the virtue and influence of heaven from the great conformity and similitude the heavens have with it, more, indeed, than what they have in relation to all other natural bodies whatever. For these reasons, and others which I care not here to give, the natural heat may well be termed celestial.
Acevedo. — One other difficulty I encounter here, and I care not to remain with it unsolved, since such fair you have found to all, and here it is. Already it has been said that the cold air which these organs, by their dilatation imbibe, doth serve to keep cool the spirit which is their occupant, so that it may neither be choked nor consumed by over heat, and when this air is thoroughly warmed, the heart then voids it by compression: that is the heart closes and squeezes out this air, all which as shown. Now here is my difficulty, I wish to know if this cold air, when it gets inside the heart, doth mix with the spirit to temper it or not ?
Villalobos. — I know not why you inquire of this, but I say it mixes with it.
Acevedo. — In the heart’s action , when it shuts, and the pulses the same, to expel and distribute the heated air, how then does it manage not to loose the spirit that is mingled with it, and sometimes let it escape and get away ?
Villalobos. — The spirit is prince and lord of the expulsive virtue, and of all the other virtues; it brings them and bestows them in all parts of the body, and it darts forth from itself that heated air to take in other more fresh; and it does not follow hence that it might escape with this air, for if such were to happen the animal would die directly, as we see in a man overcome by tidings of great joy; nor is the providence of nature so lax and ill contrived, that when an organ casts off and parts with any superfluity that is clinging to it, itself should go along with the same, or any portion of the organ be dragged therewith. You might as well ask if, when the brain voids rheum, any of the marrow of the brain is contained in the discharge.
Acevedo. — Yes. I see it now. I have now no scruple left in all the articles of this inquiry, unless there is some thing more that sticks in the wording of the problem.
Villalobos. — Well then, let us see. The letter of the problem stands thus : Since the natural heat is far less
powerful than the heat of the fire, and altogether more temperate and suave, how then does the concoction which it effects bring so rapid a change in the substance of the food, transforming it into another substance as different from the first as bread doth differ from the organ into which it has to be transformed , or if you will from the refuse that lies in the bowels. Not only so, but this natural heat will accomplish twice or thrice during the day so considerable work of concoction as cannot be effected by the blaze of the fire in the course of many days: for if bread, or food, or any meat be cooked in a pot, the heat of the fire, however great, will never operate so great a change in the substances submitted to it as does the natural heat within the stomach, moderate though it be; for if you place your hand inside the stomach of an animal you feel but a moderate degree of warmth, pleasant rather than otherwise, but if you put it in a pot where meat is boiling on the fire, the water is sure to scald you painfully. On account of this difficulty certain philosophers of antiquity held to the opinion that natural heat does not cook the food in the stomach, and the reason that Asclepiades gave for this conclusion was found in the risings and vomitings, because, indifferently as regards the stage of digestion, the food is never cooked in the stomach without certain acid and misflavoured juices which occur not at any time, as experience teaches, from the kitchen fire. I perceive, myself, that Asclepiades, Erasistratus, and those of their school, might very well believe that the food was not cooked in the stomach with the stomach’s own heat, but that it putrefied even as a dung heap frets with the heat that it has; because before any matter can be transformed into another substance, it must, perforce, corrupt and so lose the form it had to give opportunity for the reception of another form which overtakes it; and since the food enters the stomach to accept the form of blood or member, it is full need that the victual should first corrupt and despoil itself of the form which it previously had; and if this was the idea of those philosophers, it would certainly not be so ridiculous as Galen makes it out to be. But we will answer in another way more conformable to the method of the peripatetics, since we also are of their band, and I say and affirm that in the stomach there is a perfect concoction in all that is best of the food, and conformable to its sustenance, and I further say that the same occurs in the liver and in all other parts; but in all that is bad of the food, and not accordant to the nature of the said parts and members, coction is not effected in such; this, indeed, they refuse it, and it is voided as a thing both distasteful and prejudicial; and this is how I account for the unpleasantness which certainly accompanies those risings and vomitings.
Acevedo. — It is well, and what answer shall we make to that difficulty of the problem which says, the natural heat being suave and moderate, how can it effect in so short a time so incredible a piece of work ?
Villalobos. — The difficulty would indeed be great if the author of this concoction and digestion were simply natural heat, but the fact is by no means so.
Acevedo. — How then ? what cooks this food that is taken into the stomach ?
Villalobos. — The natural power we call the digestive, servant and handmaid of that other power which we agree to call the vegetative and nutritive. This it is that performs the concoction and digestion of the choicer and most adaptable parts of the food; and the natural heat is its instrument in this work, preparing the matter to receive that form which they would give it; and after the stomach is sufficiently nourished and rejoiced therewith, it parts with all the remainder, however good in itself, as a thing superfluous, misplaced, and troublesome, and then the liver sends for its ration out of it, and the intestines send no less for their share also.
Acevedo. — Where and how are they served with their ration ?
Villalobos. — At the fundus of the stomach run certain small veins we call the meseraical. These have their origin in the liver, and never do they anything but suck and draw from the stomach juice that is the quintessence of the food which is cooked there; and they carry it to the concavity of the liver, and here once again it is concocted, like must in a cask, and converted into blood, as we have said, and the liver is sustained by this blood, and then it travels through all the veins, and there is fed by it the high and low of the body everywhere; just as the highest leaves of a tree are fed by a humour concocted in the root, even though the tree should be as high as those of India, which Pliny says no Aight of arrow could over pass; yet the topmost leaf of such would be sustained and kept green by the sustenance that reaches it through the root; which indeed mounts regularly day by day, not forgetting as it proceeds, the tribute it should bring to the boughs and branches, which stretch out right and left and on every side in the whole breadth and length thereof. And so in our bodies all members high and low thrive and look fair through this blood which quits the liver and threads the veins all abroad. We must except from this description the stomach, intestines, the gall and spleen, and also the bladder, these, according to Galen, being provided for in another manner; for the stomach lives by its work, and the intestines the same, as we said in another place, without deriving anything from the veins, and the gall sustains itself from the contents of its purse, as no way slack in asking for its own, and it sucks it in as a thing very sweet and delectable, and not otherwise, the spleen is fed with the seconds that are made up of the sedimentary part of the blood, and just the same does the bladder with the urine. This I am loth to omit, as I would have the doctors know that in opposing this view they go clean against Galen, as not understanding him aright, and this from no want of distinctness on his part truly, but through errors in the earlier translations. And since that which Galen says is very truth, I would have you, please, not fail to tell it to the face of certain wiseacres who are pledged to the contrary notion , and when you have once told them that the belly is not fed and sustained by the blood that goes to the liver, oh ! then I warrant you, as a very heretic and fool you will be assailed, with bustle and tantrums they will deliver you over to destruction, or at least half slay you with their noise and clatter. They do not care, not they, to look into Galen, in the third de potentiis naturalibus, or any other part, so rooted and fixed to the opinion aforesaid, that should an angel descend from heaven they would say liar to that angel, and cast foulness on his embassy. And much more so if the subject of prejudice chance to be vain and enamoured of his talent, and finding confidence in it ; for with pride there will be melancholy, oh dear yes ! or furious airs, laughing and crying with many a wild antic and incomparable gesticulations. If chance carries you near such, take to flight, I pray you, as fast as your heels can, for mad dogs are no worse, unless you count for next to nothing all the worry and disablement.
Acevedo. — The counsel is good and the peril truly great with such as are set fast in an opinion and stiffened into a sect, without looking beyond it in the search for truth. But not to leave any stone unturned, we have yet, methinks, to learn how daily digestion is done on the food by the natural heat of the stomach, since in those risings to the mouth and vomitings we are no ways sensible of heat, and in cookery, if worth anything, there could never be such bad smell and sour taste, for such would hardly occur in what is done over the kitchen fire. in the pot.
Villalobos. — The concoction which takes place in the stomach is not altogether similar to what we see done in the pot. In the latter there is neither attractive virtue, nor expulsive, nor any other action, but solely that of the fire; for all that is done there is cooked with out everlasting niceness of choice and rejection; and thus we find no opportunity of corruption in what is done in the pot, on the contrary, it is preserved from corruption. But in the stomach it is not so: there what is accomplished is done through the nutritive power, separating what the stomach likes by the attractive virtue, and expelling what it accepts not by the expulsive virtue, and out of that which the stomach elects there is neither smell nor evil savour, but in that which it refuses, yes .
Acevedo. — If that which the stomach would get rid of is so bad, why do the liver, brain, and heart afterwards
support themselves by it ? surely these are organs more noble than the stomach.
Villalobos. — I count not as bad that which is driven from the stomach, for much of it is good, but not suitable for its purpose, and as such the stomach passes it on, because it will not serve its present turn ; but the liver, and other principal organs may find their account in it, they take of that good which is most suited to their natural purposes, and act on it by such stewings and decoctions are agreeable to their several natures, and thus they are sustained. The stomach and the bowels have no need of these refinements of cookery, because they lie outside, in the suburbs one might say; they care not for the delicies and elegancies of refined life such as takes place inside the town, by which town I would signify those members which are supported by the liver and veins; for these desire other materials in the food from what is prepared in the stomach. And this is the opinion of Galen, whatever may say the Conciliador and other light skirmishers of the schools, whose darts we hear daily whizzing in our ears.
Acevedo. — And yet there sticks but one small scruple more in this inquiry. I see not altogether how the digestive virtue performs so great a change by concoction with so low a heat as is the natural heat.
Villalobos. — And yet we might well be far more amazed at the digestion which occurs in the root of plants, which have no natural heat made evident to our perception, and these do cook the food for all the whole of the tree, though it be ever so high, as we have mentioned .
Acevedo. — Is that all you have to say in answer ?
Villalobos. — I answer that when a natural agent is strong , and gets the victory over matter, it introduces easily what form it would. And thus the digestive virtue is very strong, and gets the upper hand of the food; for this is the distinction which Galen makes between poison and food: that as poison overthrows nature, so nature subjugates the food. In such wise that the food submitting itself as conquered, and not fighting against the digestive power, only a small amount of heat is required for its concoctions. But what occurs in the kitchen fire is far otherwise, because the boiling water is not a pure natural agent, nor has it for its aim to introduce another form, and it does not get full mastery over the material in the pot; quite otherwise, this ever resists and sets itself strongly against the operation of that artificial heat: and thus, although the heat may be great, it can never be paralleled with the natural operation of the digestive virtue that employs only its mild suave heat; and if you would further prove how the concoction of the digestive process is not done by power of heat, you may learn it from fevers, for in these the heat of the stomach and other members is surpassing, and at the same time the digestion much enfeebled, so as sometimes to be quite deficient, while at others all turns corrupt. So that the natural heat ought to be in natural amount and degree for nature to operate by its means, and if it misses that measure and proportion, it is no longer natural, but extraordinary and out of course, and so to employ it nature scorns.
Acevedo. — All this is very well declared. I have nothing more to inquire.
on
NATURAL HEAT
This dialogue is between Acevedo, a student, and the famous Spanish Court Physician, Francisco Lopez de Villalobos. It is presented in a question-and-answer format and deals with the subject of the Natural or Innate Heat, known as Yang in TCM. The text appeared in a chapter of The Medical Works of Francisco Lopez de Villalobos, translated by George Gaskoin in 1870.
How can the milder natural heat,
Far more than elemental fire,?
Though this doth glow and flame much higher,
Prepare and cook all food we eat ?
Suppose we boil upon a forge
Both bread and meat for three days’ space,
It falls short of it in that case,
However much the flame we urge
Acevedo — Concerning natural heat which is common to all animals, have I listened to many a discussion among my fellows in the schools of medicine, and often do they make mention of the same, yet never could I learn if it were body, soul, or complexion, nor know I if it occupies the whole of the animal, or if it has its principium or birth in any special part or parts, and they lay to its account all that is done within the frame; me it strikes not yet in what wise ’tis so, for sometimes they will have it to be a sculptor or a limner of faces to the life; it comes and goes, grows and dwindles, they give more uses and offices than there be of days in the year, but never man set eyes upon it yet. Is it then a phantasy this animal heat, a sort of Robin Goodfellow or Will-o-the-Wisp, a bogiel or a scapegoat for the faculty ?
Villalobos. — In a question that has laid pretty long under the fail, you have started so many difficulties and false shows, that it would seem you would almost have us to understand there is no foundation for what is said concerning natural heat, a mere bubble of physicians and philosophers. And since to mere snatches of inquiry my answering could never serve, either for my satisfaction or your own in removing your so many scruples, I should desire, here as we stand, to set the thing plainly before you in a clear and intelligent manner. First, I would call the senses into court, and when once you knew the thing palpably, I should be able, I think, to resolve your questions one by one, till your difficulties were far less than now they appear to be. Any way, you shall be satisfied, or my deficiencies be shown.
Acevedo. — As for me, fain would I see my hand into this darkness, for indeed I do lose my way. Would that some kind Christian would take me by the hand.
Villalobos. — Give it here that hand. Thrust it into your bosom now.
Acevedo. — Forthwith I obey you, sir.
Villalobos. — Tell me, what is it that you feel ?
Acevedo. — I feel warmth, truly.
Villalobos. — Then I would have you know and confess that this you feel is animal heat, which indeed all animals enjoy so long as life doth last; and when there is such cold in the air that a big bonfire would not burn, or even if you stood in a plain with snow for miles around, there, there is natural heat; thrust your hand in your bosom and you shall find it so there. And if journeying among men at night by snowy mountain paths, toʻsave your life from cold you kill the beast that goes under you, and into his warm belly ripped you thrust both feet, as one has heard the tale, your life may thus be saved. This while they live all living have, and when they die they all turn cold.
Acevedo. — Then of necessity it is the soul (alma) that supplies us with natural heat ?
Villalobos. — No less.
Acevedo. — This is what I could never understand. For how is it possible that a thing should furnish us with heat which hath not heat in itself ? The soul is not any corporeal thing, nor is it subject to those qualities which bodies have. How then can it impart warmth by its presence, and maintain heat in the frame ?
Villalobos. — Some things there are communicating warmth, and yet not hot in themselves.
Acevedo. — What things, I pray you ? tell me that.
Villalobos. — The sun, the moon, and all the stars, which are not warm in themselves, as being no way affected by the contagion of elemental qualities, and yet do they engender heat in all that lies below; and also movement in its own nature is nothing warm, but a cause of heat that it is, by voice of all philosophers, for they say no movement can occur without the production of heat.
Acevedo. — I confess to that in corporeal things, but the soul (alma) you see is not a heavenly body to scatter down heat on all that’s underneath, nor has it movement, that I am aware of, for in itself it is immoveable. Tell us, then, of the soul, how does it become a cause of heat in the frame ?
Villalobos. — Through movement, it is movement causes heat. The soul, it is true, does not move of itself, and yet by its presence it occasions movement in the body.
Acevedo. — What shall we say, then, when the body is at rest ? Is there then no heat laid up in it ?
Villalobos. — Never once, while any life remains, does the body cease to move, either in itself or in some of its
members and parts, and so far as the body, we may say that it is never wholly at rest.
Acevedo. — What parts are these in the body that are so constantly engaged in movement ?
Villalobos. — The heart, the lungs, and chest, with all its tissues, and the belly, and all the pulsating veins, as well as those fine webs with which the last are interlaced.
Acevedo. — Is there nothing, then, in the body but what takes part in this movement ? and how is the heat of such parts provided for ? I pray you tell me that.
Villalobos. — Do you wind round me in this fashion to worm all out of me, and have it as your own ?
Acevedo. — In sooth, good sir, ’tis the game I aim at. And let it not anger you now.
Villalobos. — Well, you must know that the heart in its construction hath a double sinus or cavity, of which the one on the right side is charged with blood extra-ordinarily choice, such as might be fitted for the entertainment and support of so noble a substance, and in the left chamber is contained a subtle body, after the manner of air. In visible, celestial, and most pure this body is, wherein the highest aim of nature is proved to give it perfectness; for its sake was made the heart as its proper recipient, and all the other parts are for it, and to obey it; for it is the chiefest subject of the soul, and from it is communicated life, and all the virtues to the body in every part thereof. This is the Platonic philosophy, and the Peripatetics contest it not .
Acevedo. — How can you ascertain that the left sinus of the heart is filled with such a spirit, since no man, I believe, ever saw it ? How do you know ’tis so ?
Villalobos. — The thing is palpable: we know it by the touch .
Acevedo. — How by the touch ?
Villalobos. — Through the pulses. We cannot but be sensible that they hold within a subtle body, which makes them beat, and they never wholly cease from this till life is extinguished in the animal.
Acevedo. — How can you tell that the left sinus of the heart is full of this spirit ?
Villalobos. — Because after death it is found empty, and nature we know has made nothing fruitlessly. As if so
principal a member as the heart should show an empty cupboard, and not rather conceal some great treasure,
some exquisite substance to serve as principal residence for the soul, which could not otherwise remain. What warrants it the more is that we know the pulsating veins to be derived from thence, and in these we palpably do find the spirit goes, for in the pulses we have felt it bounding as aforesaid .
Acevedo. — In such sort that step by step you would have me to believe that from the heart proceeds the life, and also natural heat, and that from thence it is distributed to the body in every part thereof.
Villalobos. — Nothing short of it, as you have heard .
Acevedo. — A new light in philosophy, truly; all the scholars who have sucked in their principia do talk of it. This is of the very elements of medicine.
Villalobos. — I have brought you by the way and by the track which the great natural philosophers had skill to find, and which they were proud to tread in, and I have caused you to lay your hand on natural heat, and no less on vital spirit, in the comprehension of which you professed to find innumerable ambiguities and darknesses; and now it seems that you find it all correct and unassailable, all the scholars know as much, and the babes all suck it in. Thus it is ever with the ill informed, before they have learnt to know a thing it is nought, and when it is explained to them, oh ! then they knew it all along.
Acevedo. — What you say is but true. This time I confess the fault is gross. Far from thanking you as I ought, because you showed me what I was most in doubt of, I am here like the peasant that goes blubbering for his mule, and the man that shows it him he threatens with the stocks.
Villalobos. — Enough. As yet I have not declared the principal point, for fear you should cross me with some light questioning, much as indeed has occurred. You have inquired of me whence proceeds the natural heat such as pervades all the members during life. My answer is, that it reaches them from the heart, and I say further, that it flows through the channel of the pulsating veins, which come off, as I said before, direct from the heart, and they pass dividedly to every member of the body, having within that vital spirit that is so very warm in itself, with which they warm all the members and all the ends and corners of the body, and this they do with a suave and uniform heat, by help of which the nutritive faculty undertakes the digestive acts, and it is named natural heat as being natural to the animal, and not produced by any artificial means.
Acevedo. — You bring me forward to the light. True it is we hear these questions in the schools, but what with
prejudice, and what with defect of intelligence, only words do rumble in our ears, and the understanding has no savour from them any more than have clowns from their food, down it goes, and leaves nor delight nor thankful-ness. I now would be told how the heart and spirit come by the heat they have, sufficient not only to maintain the amount of warmth which is there, but also with its superfluity and excess to spread the same through flesh and bones, reaching to every part, and to all ends of the body which keep open doors to its approach. For suppose in such place a fire burning, ‘twould surely consume the material that feeds it, and scar and ruin the spot where it blazed. Shall we say this heat is of the soul (anima) ? that is a thing which I cannot understand; seeing, as I said before, the soul is neither fire nor flame, nor as to its qualities are they corporeal. But then again, I cannot but see that when the soul (alma) goes one, the heat doth soon subside; the body all turns cold, and so remains as clay. Where fore in so considerable a difficulty, there resides, according to my idea, some grand secret of philosophy.
Villalobos. — In what other shots you have made you have circled about the white, but this time you have driven, my friend, your shaft straight into the bull’s eye. Hence I am the more engaged to tell you all I know. Learn, then, that the principal cause of this heat is the soul (anima), which does everything in the body through instruments it brings in, to be employed in what are called the secondary actsl because primarily it gives existence to the body, which only by the soul doth become and continues what it is; but over and above this, the soul is cause of operations, all such as are done in the body, and this is secondary act. The instrument which nature employs to engender that heat which resides in the heart and spirit is no other than the incessant movement of the heart and pulses therefrom proceeding; because all movement, as we said before, is cause of actual heat, and that not alone in animals, but also with inanimate things. Just as from blows upon stone there spring forth sparks of fire, and with wood the same, and when a noble vessel sails in full career sparks are seen to strike about the prow out of the bosom of that very element that is able to extinguish flame. With animals the thing is more noticeable still, as is seen in the greyhound, at the end of its coursing it so steams with heat as pond nor river could allay it. In man the same is observed when he hurries his pace or mounts a hill. And the heart and pulses being always in movement the spirit cannot but heat from being contained within them, and none the less from this spirit being a body fine and delicate, of a nature such as might be expected to heat promptly, and the rather from its being pent up in a narrow room, and so it does heat in fact, in such sort that if by the instrumentality of the respirations and also by the movement itself there were not taken in cold air to temper its excess, in a short time it must blaze and burn right out. This would indeed be nothing short of suffocation, because in such a case the spirit aforesaid would be converted into fire, and in this way the animal would spend its last breath . So you see the air we take in by the breathing enters the lung, and this puffs away at the heart like a bellows. And then in its act of closing, the heart squeezes and drives forward the air it has received, which by that time has become heated enough, and then once more it loosens out to take in some fresh and cooling air. All this is done with such frequency and rapidity as is accommodated to the coming and going of the breath. Such is the behaviour of the heart and its dependencies every day of its life without strain or weariness because it is a natural movement like that of the heavens which in like manner is done without fatigue.
Acevedo. — I imagined the pulsation of the heart and that of the other organs of the breath, which we name
spiritual, only served for two offices — one being the taking in of the air for its refrigeration, the other office being concerned in the expulsion of the same after it has become warmed, as is found written in all medicine; for when the heart relaxes and dilates, it takes in cold air, this being hurried to fill up that vacuum which may not exist in nature, and then once more it shuts and drives from out of it the heated air as in your comparison of the bellows. But that such movement was the immediate cause of natural heat as observed by us in animals, ’tis a thing I never dreamt of. It is not taught in the schools nor have I seen it anywhere written.
Villalobos. — Aye, child of mine, neither is it mentioned by Jacobo di Forlivio, nor any of the nominalists, and what made you think, pray, that the spirit which has its dwelling in the heart possesses so much actual heat? that it should be necessary to temper it continually with exterior air, and the more since Galen never writ it down as hot of complexion and it is even called a temperate vapour.
Acevedo. — My impression was that the spirit of its own nature is so hot, that it hath need to be moderated by the breath. I know Avicenna says of it that it is the hottest thing there is in all the whole body of man.
Villalobos. — What Avicenna meant to say is, that it is more hot than any as to the actual quality, and so it really is, for it bestows heat on all the members; but as to the complexional quality he would say far different.
Acevedo. — He is there speaking of the complexional qualities of all the members.
Villalobos. — That is true, but he only writes as physician according to the judgment of the senses and not according to the naturality of things. For had he spoken as philosopher he would have expressed himself far otherwise. But in whatever way I look at it, even if the spirit in its natural complexion is so very hot, what necessity is there for the same to be cooled ?
Acevedo. — Lest it should be set on fire and consume itself with so much heat.
Villalobos. — If such were natural to the spirit rather than be so resolved it will be preserved by the heat as we find is the case with vipers and other very warm animals, the same are preserved by heat, even those of the fourth degree. But why do we search for examples when we find that fire doth consume and break down all that is before it, but not its own flame; this it ruins not, it rather maintains itself, persisting in its form and circle, which are also qualities it has; so that if the spirit finds a necessity to cool or temper any heat, this would scarcely be heat of its own, such heat as is native to it, but rather such as is renewed therein, as being the subject of that heat, which has to be imparted thence to every part of the body, just as the sun imparts both light and heat to every quarter of the universe. And, indeed, if you consider the thing well, there is no other part in the human frame to which nature could commit the task of spreading this heat through the frame, being at the same time the subject of it but only this vital spirit, because by reason of its delicacy it is fitted to receive heat rapidly, and by its lightness to convey it swiftly wherever it may be required, experiencing neither labour nor fatigue, because as one might say, it is appointed to it to visit all parts of the body and to give them all that life which but for it would fail them, and further to convey to them the natural heat without which they could never be warm nor execute what nature requires of them as already has been said. And if you can suggest any other immediate cause of natural heat which shall square with fact so well as doth this same with the incessant movement of the chiefest organs of the body, down goes my lance at once and I will surrender myself to your superior opinion.
Acevedo. — This indeed is something new: fruit not to be gathered on every wall. It would be well to add this,
methinks, to the problems you say you are subjecting to the press, for there is much of value in it, and it will be
esteemed accordingly, however that it might lose some thing of dignity by being delivered in the vulgar tongue.
Villalobos. — I have written all this in a book entitled ‘de potentia vitali,’ and set it forth in the Latin language, but your Spanish printer cares not for books in Latin . The author must lay down the cost out of his own pocket before hand, and I being no craftsman or vendor of books, think it a little too bad that I should be mulcted in toil, and perish in my substance too, and why ? only that those may be served who see but little value in my labourings; nay, there will always be of the children of rapacity carping at it, and snarling at the heels of him they rob.
Acevedo. — I go bail for a bookseller that shall not be a year in selling every copy that comes from the press in regard to the subject in hand. But tell me now, what could be nature’s intent in giving to the spirit so considerable a heat that it should need this unceasing and vigilant refreshment ? For both sleeping and waking we see the fresh air never cease to visit us by the breath, and to pass through the pulses to the frame, for the sake of refrigeration.
Villalobos. — Nature might have better answered your expectation, perhaps, if the heat which the spirit yields was only meant for its use, but it was necessary besides that there should be enough to furnish the whole body with heat, and so noble and delicate a substance as this spirit, could never bear the strain nor the effect of the heat provided for all, if not opportunely restored by such process of cooling.
Acevedo. — What so great need of all this heat in every part of the body ?
Villalobos. — An answer to this will not employ us long, for no argument has been more thrashed out than this; there is no physician or philosopher who does not know that natural heat was meant for the concoction of food,
which in the first instance is done in the stomach and belly, and then in the liver, veins, and heart; after which each member accomplishes its own particular concoction out of that share or ration that comes to it; which process is ever conformable to the natural appetite and gust of such parts, varying as they do vary in kind. And if it were not for this heat all the blood would set in the body and coagulate; it could never run through the large veins, much less through those of smallest size, which ramify everywhere through all divisions of the limbs and organs, and never are they allowed to be dry, but incessantly drop and distil sap and green diet, and the heat is as truly kept up in them as we see maintained the flame of the candle by fat that clings to the wick. And in fine this heat was made for thousand other uses which we have no time nor need to describe.
Acevedo. — I confess myself more than satisfied in the discourse we have had, for already I seem to know about natural heat and its causes, the oven where it is made hot, and the pipes along which it sallies to all interior and exterior parts, and also I see the purposes for which it was contrived, and all made so plain and clear, I seem to have known it with my eyes, and to have touched it with my hands. But one thing puzzles me yet, long since ’tis on my mind .
Villalobos. — What is that ?
Acevedo. — It is said that through the organs of the breath and through the pulsating veins there enters into the heart fresh air, with which there is attempered the spirit that dwells therein, so that this may not choke nor be resolved by the so great heat which it contains, and this air enters by the mouth and nostrils into the lungs, and thence it gets to the heart.
Villalobos. — Pretty much so, in fact.
Acevedo. — And if the said air should fail to come, the spirit then chokes, burnt out of a sudden, and so the animal dies.
Villalobos. — What you say is true.
Acevedo. — Well then, explain me this. The babe yet in the womb hath its mouth and nostrils stopped, but were they opened a span wide, the place it lies in is so confined and hot, that if any man had his head in the like he would surely undergo suffocation. I would ask how the little wretch contrives to live and thrive for so many months and not be choked the while, if it be true, as you say, that fresh air is uncommonly necessary. We observe that after the babe has escaped from the womb, if the parent overlays it, or crams it in feeding with thick food, or if she is unhandy with the breast, or covers the mouth with the bedclothes without sufficient care, nay, if any way the mouth and nostrils are stopped, the little thing is like to choke. What reason can you give for its choking like that when it is out of the womb, and yet its life goes on very well in that so close and suffocating place ?
Villalobos. — ‘Tis well thought of by you, and not hackneyed either. As to this, some have looked on it as a miracle, and some lay it to qualities that are occult. If one might answer in that way concerning natural things, adieu philosophy ! all inquiry might be stayed at once by saying that such and such was only one miracle more, that God willed it so, and the like, and then indeed the merest rustic might on the same bench with Aristoteles and Plato, and with more of truth, may be, on his side. My idea of it is simply this: while the babe is in the womb there is no need for its heart to engender so much heat that it would possibly choke, and resolve the vital spirit which is contained therein, whence that movement of dilatation and compression which takes place in the heart and other parts which pulsate, hath need to be little or none, so long, at least, as the babe is in the womb.
Acevedo. — Whence then proceeds the heat by which the nutritive power in the unborn babe accomplishes its
digestion and other operations ?
Villalobos. — It is derived from the mother, in whom the natural heat serves both for herself and child. The veins
of mother and offspring are so interlaced and inwrought that her natural acts include those of the child, even as if it were a limb of hers: and just as the stomach of the child lies unemployed in function until it is born into the world, and takes in food by the mouth; in the like manner the heart is still and functionless until the mouth of the child, as I have said, begins to imbibe its food, and by the mouth and nostrils breath is also taken in, so as to set the heart a-going, and to engender that natural heat which is all the more necessary, since now the babe first misses the heat it had from the mother. And supposing that in the womb the heart of the offspring did need some degree of refreshment, this necessity is yet not so great but that the small amount of air may suffice which reaches it through the pulsating veins of the mother: the same have already been mentioned by us as intermarried and inwrought with those of her offspring
Acevedo. — And when the babe is just born into the world, how does it know that it should take in fresh air, which in the womb it did so well without ? and what first instructs it to breathe ?
Villalobos. — It is lessoned by the same schoolmistress as teaches it to suck the breast, although during its stay
in the womb the infant had no practice in this: it is nature which teaches it, the vital and nutritive faculties being the means which nature employs.
Acevedo. — But this movement of the heart and members of the spirit, what agent compels them ? for to my sense and apprehension you cannot say the soul (anima) does it, since of itself the soul neither has such skill, nor concerns itself in this; and even while we sleep the movement is the same, nay, it occurs during apoplexy, and even when our attention is turned away from it, and it is generally removed from the direction of the will.
Villalobos. — All this is effected by the vital principle (potencia), the suggestion of which the physicians have
borrowed, and not inconsiderately, from the philosophers
Acevedo. — How does such power then act ?
Villalobos. — It does all so naturally and with such seeming subtlety, as if it knew what it was about, and what it had to do, by headwork. Already you are informed by what proceeds that the nutritive power (potencia) doth operate by four virtues which it hath. First in order is the attractive virtue, by which nature acquires and imbibes a certain amount of sustenance. The second is the retentive, by which she fixes it, and which operates until it is dealt and done with. The third is the digestive, by which digestion is performed on the food. The fourth is the expulsive virtue, through which she voids and ejects all surplus or inconvenient thing. All this is seen in the child at its birth, because by the attractive virtue the stomach draws in and gets the milk, and with the retentive detains it, not parting with the aliment until it has been subject to digestion; by the digestive virtue the digestive process is performed, and the stomach partakes of all that agrees with it, and lastly, by the expulsive virtue the stomach rids itself of whatever it may not consider useful.
Acevedo. — All this we have heard explained in the fore going problem.
Villalobos. — You say true, but it is not amiss to return to it once again, that you may be better prepared for what I have next to say. Know, then, that just as the nutritive power of an animal, and also of a plant, naturally operates by these four virtues, without intention or consciousness, in such wise the vital power of animals operates with the two which are here in question quite naturally, with no kind of knowledge of what it does. Because just as in the members that are fed and nourished, there is the attractive virtue that obtains present material, and also the expulsive, which gets rid of all noisomeness and excess, so in the organs of the breath , there is the attractive virtue as to the cold air, and the expulsive as to the warm air, and neither of them knows what it does. And with these two virtues, the heart opens and makes a bag of itself, like the bellows, to take in cold air, and then it shuts and
squeezes on purpose to emit and eject the heated air. And since we do not marvel at the natural movements in the organs of nutrition, which attract thither to them all they require, and reject and dismiss all they find no use for, why should we marvel at the natural movements which the heart exhibits when it draws in cold air to launch it forth subsequently and orderly as heated air; because all such movements, certainly not voluntary, otherwise than natural, were bestowed on animals in their kind, not otherwise than on the elements were bestowed such movements as they have, and such as they exhibit in the order of their generations.
Acevedo. — I must confess myself satisfied as to what has occupied us. But now I am curious to learn why the doctors call it celestial, this natural heat ?
Villalobos. — If I do not err, it may rightly be called celestial because it does not proceed from element, but is engendered in the heart by that unceasing movement which is never stilled until life departs : for there is no movement of corruptible bodies in all the whole of nature that so nearly answers to the movement of heavenly bodies as does the movement of the heart and pulsating veins; because they move as the heavens without wearying or irksomeness, and the heart moves according to its parts, always without shifting its place, and so far differing from the heavens, and the pulses move with the movement of the primum mobile, which is the heart; and they are all entertained in this motion by something that is not mobile at all, and that is nature’s self; and also the heart and the pulses contain within them a body,very resembling the celestial bodies, which indeed is the spirit, and this spirit receives the virtue and influence of heaven from the great conformity and similitude the heavens have with it, more, indeed, than what they have in relation to all other natural bodies whatever. For these reasons, and others which I care not here to give, the natural heat may well be termed celestial.
Acevedo. — One other difficulty I encounter here, and I care not to remain with it unsolved, since such fair you have found to all, and here it is. Already it has been said that the cold air which these organs, by their dilatation imbibe, doth serve to keep cool the spirit which is their occupant, so that it may neither be choked nor consumed by over heat, and when this air is thoroughly warmed, the heart then voids it by compression: that is the heart closes and squeezes out this air, all which as shown. Now here is my difficulty, I wish to know if this cold air, when it gets inside the heart, doth mix with the spirit to temper it or not ?
Villalobos. — I know not why you inquire of this, but I say it mixes with it.
Acevedo. — In the heart’s action , when it shuts, and the pulses the same, to expel and distribute the heated air, how then does it manage not to loose the spirit that is mingled with it, and sometimes let it escape and get away ?
Villalobos. — The spirit is prince and lord of the expulsive virtue, and of all the other virtues; it brings them and bestows them in all parts of the body, and it darts forth from itself that heated air to take in other more fresh; and it does not follow hence that it might escape with this air, for if such were to happen the animal would die directly, as we see in a man overcome by tidings of great joy; nor is the providence of nature so lax and ill contrived, that when an organ casts off and parts with any superfluity that is clinging to it, itself should go along with the same, or any portion of the organ be dragged therewith. You might as well ask if, when the brain voids rheum, any of the marrow of the brain is contained in the discharge.
Acevedo. — Yes. I see it now. I have now no scruple left in all the articles of this inquiry, unless there is some thing more that sticks in the wording of the problem.
Villalobos. — Well then, let us see. The letter of the problem stands thus : Since the natural heat is far less
powerful than the heat of the fire, and altogether more temperate and suave, how then does the concoction which it effects bring so rapid a change in the substance of the food, transforming it into another substance as different from the first as bread doth differ from the organ into which it has to be transformed , or if you will from the refuse that lies in the bowels. Not only so, but this natural heat will accomplish twice or thrice during the day so considerable work of concoction as cannot be effected by the blaze of the fire in the course of many days: for if bread, or food, or any meat be cooked in a pot, the heat of the fire, however great, will never operate so great a change in the substances submitted to it as does the natural heat within the stomach, moderate though it be; for if you place your hand inside the stomach of an animal you feel but a moderate degree of warmth, pleasant rather than otherwise, but if you put it in a pot where meat is boiling on the fire, the water is sure to scald you painfully. On account of this difficulty certain philosophers of antiquity held to the opinion that natural heat does not cook the food in the stomach, and the reason that Asclepiades gave for this conclusion was found in the risings and vomitings, because, indifferently as regards the stage of digestion, the food is never cooked in the stomach without certain acid and misflavoured juices which occur not at any time, as experience teaches, from the kitchen fire. I perceive, myself, that Asclepiades, Erasistratus, and those of their school, might very well believe that the food was not cooked in the stomach with the stomach’s own heat, but that it putrefied even as a dung heap frets with the heat that it has; because before any matter can be transformed into another substance, it must, perforce, corrupt and so lose the form it had to give opportunity for the reception of another form which overtakes it; and since the food enters the stomach to accept the form of blood or member, it is full need that the victual should first corrupt and despoil itself of the form which it previously had; and if this was the idea of those philosophers, it would certainly not be so ridiculous as Galen makes it out to be. But we will answer in another way more conformable to the method of the peripatetics, since we also are of their band, and I say and affirm that in the stomach there is a perfect concoction in all that is best of the food, and conformable to its sustenance, and I further say that the same occurs in the liver and in all other parts; but in all that is bad of the food, and not accordant to the nature of the said parts and members, coction is not effected in such; this, indeed, they refuse it, and it is voided as a thing both distasteful and prejudicial; and this is how I account for the unpleasantness which certainly accompanies those risings and vomitings.
Acevedo. — It is well, and what answer shall we make to that difficulty of the problem which says, the natural heat being suave and moderate, how can it effect in so short a time so incredible a piece of work ?
Villalobos. — The difficulty would indeed be great if the author of this concoction and digestion were simply natural heat, but the fact is by no means so.
Acevedo. — How then ? what cooks this food that is taken into the stomach ?
Villalobos. — The natural power we call the digestive, servant and handmaid of that other power which we agree to call the vegetative and nutritive. This it is that performs the concoction and digestion of the choicer and most adaptable parts of the food; and the natural heat is its instrument in this work, preparing the matter to receive that form which they would give it; and after the stomach is sufficiently nourished and rejoiced therewith, it parts with all the remainder, however good in itself, as a thing superfluous, misplaced, and troublesome, and then the liver sends for its ration out of it, and the intestines send no less for their share also.
Acevedo. — Where and how are they served with their ration ?
Villalobos. — At the fundus of the stomach run certain small veins we call the meseraical. These have their origin in the liver, and never do they anything but suck and draw from the stomach juice that is the quintessence of the food which is cooked there; and they carry it to the concavity of the liver, and here once again it is concocted, like must in a cask, and converted into blood, as we have said, and the liver is sustained by this blood, and then it travels through all the veins, and there is fed by it the high and low of the body everywhere; just as the highest leaves of a tree are fed by a humour concocted in the root, even though the tree should be as high as those of India, which Pliny says no Aight of arrow could over pass; yet the topmost leaf of such would be sustained and kept green by the sustenance that reaches it through the root; which indeed mounts regularly day by day, not forgetting as it proceeds, the tribute it should bring to the boughs and branches, which stretch out right and left and on every side in the whole breadth and length thereof. And so in our bodies all members high and low thrive and look fair through this blood which quits the liver and threads the veins all abroad. We must except from this description the stomach, intestines, the gall and spleen, and also the bladder, these, according to Galen, being provided for in another manner; for the stomach lives by its work, and the intestines the same, as we said in another place, without deriving anything from the veins, and the gall sustains itself from the contents of its purse, as no way slack in asking for its own, and it sucks it in as a thing very sweet and delectable, and not otherwise, the spleen is fed with the seconds that are made up of the sedimentary part of the blood, and just the same does the bladder with the urine. This I am loth to omit, as I would have the doctors know that in opposing this view they go clean against Galen, as not understanding him aright, and this from no want of distinctness on his part truly, but through errors in the earlier translations. And since that which Galen says is very truth, I would have you, please, not fail to tell it to the face of certain wiseacres who are pledged to the contrary notion , and when you have once told them that the belly is not fed and sustained by the blood that goes to the liver, oh ! then I warrant you, as a very heretic and fool you will be assailed, with bustle and tantrums they will deliver you over to destruction, or at least half slay you with their noise and clatter. They do not care, not they, to look into Galen, in the third de potentiis naturalibus, or any other part, so rooted and fixed to the opinion aforesaid, that should an angel descend from heaven they would say liar to that angel, and cast foulness on his embassy. And much more so if the subject of prejudice chance to be vain and enamoured of his talent, and finding confidence in it ; for with pride there will be melancholy, oh dear yes ! or furious airs, laughing and crying with many a wild antic and incomparable gesticulations. If chance carries you near such, take to flight, I pray you, as fast as your heels can, for mad dogs are no worse, unless you count for next to nothing all the worry and disablement.
Acevedo. — The counsel is good and the peril truly great with such as are set fast in an opinion and stiffened into a sect, without looking beyond it in the search for truth. But not to leave any stone unturned, we have yet, methinks, to learn how daily digestion is done on the food by the natural heat of the stomach, since in those risings to the mouth and vomitings we are no ways sensible of heat, and in cookery, if worth anything, there could never be such bad smell and sour taste, for such would hardly occur in what is done over the kitchen fire. in the pot.
Villalobos. — The concoction which takes place in the stomach is not altogether similar to what we see done in the pot. In the latter there is neither attractive virtue, nor expulsive, nor any other action, but solely that of the fire; for all that is done there is cooked with out everlasting niceness of choice and rejection; and thus we find no opportunity of corruption in what is done in the pot, on the contrary, it is preserved from corruption. But in the stomach it is not so: there what is accomplished is done through the nutritive power, separating what the stomach likes by the attractive virtue, and expelling what it accepts not by the expulsive virtue, and out of that which the stomach elects there is neither smell nor evil savour, but in that which it refuses, yes .
Acevedo. — If that which the stomach would get rid of is so bad, why do the liver, brain, and heart afterwards
support themselves by it ? surely these are organs more noble than the stomach.
Villalobos. — I count not as bad that which is driven from the stomach, for much of it is good, but not suitable for its purpose, and as such the stomach passes it on, because it will not serve its present turn ; but the liver, and other principal organs may find their account in it, they take of that good which is most suited to their natural purposes, and act on it by such stewings and decoctions are agreeable to their several natures, and thus they are sustained. The stomach and the bowels have no need of these refinements of cookery, because they lie outside, in the suburbs one might say; they care not for the delicies and elegancies of refined life such as takes place inside the town, by which town I would signify those members which are supported by the liver and veins; for these desire other materials in the food from what is prepared in the stomach. And this is the opinion of Galen, whatever may say the Conciliador and other light skirmishers of the schools, whose darts we hear daily whizzing in our ears.
Acevedo. — And yet there sticks but one small scruple more in this inquiry. I see not altogether how the digestive virtue performs so great a change by concoction with so low a heat as is the natural heat.
Villalobos. — And yet we might well be far more amazed at the digestion which occurs in the root of plants, which have no natural heat made evident to our perception, and these do cook the food for all the whole of the tree, though it be ever so high, as we have mentioned .
Acevedo. — Is that all you have to say in answer ?
Villalobos. — I answer that when a natural agent is strong , and gets the victory over matter, it introduces easily what form it would. And thus the digestive virtue is very strong, and gets the upper hand of the food; for this is the distinction which Galen makes between poison and food: that as poison overthrows nature, so nature subjugates the food. In such wise that the food submitting itself as conquered, and not fighting against the digestive power, only a small amount of heat is required for its concoctions. But what occurs in the kitchen fire is far otherwise, because the boiling water is not a pure natural agent, nor has it for its aim to introduce another form, and it does not get full mastery over the material in the pot; quite otherwise, this ever resists and sets itself strongly against the operation of that artificial heat: and thus, although the heat may be great, it can never be paralleled with the natural operation of the digestive virtue that employs only its mild suave heat; and if you would further prove how the concoction of the digestive process is not done by power of heat, you may learn it from fevers, for in these the heat of the stomach and other members is surpassing, and at the same time the digestion much enfeebled, so as sometimes to be quite deficient, while at others all turns corrupt. So that the natural heat ought to be in natural amount and degree for nature to operate by its means, and if it misses that measure and proportion, it is no longer natural, but extraordinary and out of course, and so to employ it nature scorns.
Acevedo. — All this is very well declared. I have nothing more to inquire.