Such haemorrhages are of a passive kind, and not violent as are
those from the windpipe.
The great vessel and the aorta, which above lie somewhat apart,
lower down exchange positions, and by so doing give compactness to the
body. For when they reach the point where the legs diverge, they
each split into two, and the great vessel passes from the front to the
rear, and the aorta from the rear to the front. By this they
contribute to the unity of the whole fabric. For as in plaited work
the parts hold more firmly together because of the interweaving, so
also by the interchange of position between the blood-vessels are
the anterior and posterior parts of the body more closely knit
together. A similar exchange of position occurs also in the upper part
of the body, between the vessels that have issued from the heart.
The details however of the mutual relations of the different vessels
must be looked for in the treatises on Anatomy and the Researches
concerning Animals.
So much, then, as concerns the heart and the blood-vessels. We
must now pass on to the other viscera and apply the same method of
inquiry to them.
6
The lung, then, is an organ found in all the animals of a certain
class, because they live on land. For there must of necessity be
some means or other of tempering the heat of the body; and in
sanguineous animals, as they are of an especially hot nature, the
cooling agency must be external, whereas in the bloodless kinds the
innate spirit is sufficient of itself for the purpose.
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