All animals that have blood possess an omentum, a mesentery,
intestines with their appendages, and, moreover, a diaphragm and a
heart; and all, excepting fishes, a lung and a windpipe. The
relative positions, moreover, of the windpipe and the oesophagus are
precisely similar in them all; and the reason is the same as has
already been given.
2
Almost all sanguineous animals have a gall-bladder. In some this
is attached to the liver, in others separated from that organ and
attached to the intestines, being apparently in the latter case no
less than in the former an appendage of the lower stomach. It is in
fishes that this is most clearly seen. For all fishes have a
gall-bladder; and in most of them it is attached to the intestine,
being in some, as in the Amia, united with this, like a border,
along its whole length. It is similarly placed in most serpents
There are therefore no good grounds for the view entertained by some
writers, that the gall exists for the sake of some sensory action. For
they say that its use is to affect that part of the soul which is
lodged in the neighbourhood of the liver, vexing this part when it
is congealed, and restoring it to cheerfulness when it again flows
free. But this cannot be. For in some animals there is absolutely no
gall-bladder at all--in the horse, for instance, the mule, the ass,
the deer, and the roe; and in others, as the camel, there is no
distinct bladder, but merely small vessels of a biliary character.
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