Has de humoribus theses

...was either calloused, or eroded, and appeared completely inept for generating blood.

39. We therefore think it likely that the spleen attracts the thicker and more earthy parts of the chyle, concocts them, and for its own nutrition converts them into blood, albeit a somewhat blackish one, a portion of which it also shares with other parts.

40. The spleen also seems to aid the liver's concoction, while it diverts no small amount of the serous humor (which Aristotle seems to have intended by the term imadas perittas superfluous moistures) together with those thicker parts of the chyle, which they use as a kind of vehicle, so that it might not disturb the action of the liver with its abundance and coldness.

41. Hence, the more the spleen performs its duty of attracting, diverting, and concocting, the better the concoction is completed in the liver. When, however, the spleen is hindered for any reason, the liver is very easily obstructed, or otherwise exists as the cause of many evils.

42. The melancholic excrement, however, which is the least of all in man according to Galen, whether it is generated in the spleen or in the liver, can be purged through the hemorrhoids or through the splenic arteries to the kidneys.

43. The third excrement, which is separated from the blood in the liver, is the serum, which arises from drink or any liquid with which food is treated.

44. One milder part of this is distributed together into the veins, and it dilutes the blood, which has already been made thicker by concoction and an abundance of fibers, and leads it into the extremities of the body as a vehicle. After it has performed this duty of carriage, it is partly consumed through sweats and insensible transpiration, and partly driven into the kidneys through the same paths, not indeed by its own impulse, but by the force of the expelling veins.