Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

152 Aristotle and his schoolThe remark about the strong desires of melancholics, with their resultinglack of discipline, is confirmed by the results so far. 49 Some final points ofinterest are Aristotle’s remark about youth and the influence of physicalgrowth on the human character (ēthos), as well as the comparison withdrunks. 50 Aristotle uses youth and old age as typical examples to elucidatethe close connection between mental and physical states (Rh. 2.12–13, inparticular 1389 a 18–19 and b 29–32); and the use of these examples as ananalogy for the ‘character-affecting’ influence (to ēthopoion) of the melancholicmixture will return in Pr. 30.1 (954 b 8–11).4 black bile in physiologyWe have seen that Aristotle credits the melancholics with several psychophysicaland moral deviations or weaknesses, sometimes adding brief referencesto their physiological causes. Further details about this physiologicalbasis can be found in the only passage entirely devoted to bile (cholē ), inPart. an. 4.2. The chapter begins by listing animals which have bile andanimals which do not. 51 Aristotle remarkably claims that not all peoplepossess bile (676 b 31–2) and that, contrary to popular belief, bile is notthe cause of acute diseases. So why does bile exist? According to Aristotle,bile is a residue (perittōma) without purpose ( ), andalthough nature sometimes makes good use of residues, this does not implythat we should expect everything to have a purpose. After all, there are manythings that are necessarily by-products of things that do serve a purpose,but are themselves without purpose. On bile as a perittōma Aristotle saysa few lines further on (677 a 25): ‘when the blood is not entirely pure,bile will be generated as a residue, for residue is the opposite of food’.Bile appears to be a ‘purifying secretion’ (apokatharma), which is confirmedby the saying in antiquity that people live longer if they do not havebile.49 The complication that in the discussion of lack of self-control melancholics were considered to belacking in self-control, whereas the relevant passages (Eth. Nic. 1150 a 16ff.; 1150 b 29ff.) differentiatebetween akrasia and akolasia can be resolved by assuming that the difference is probably irrelevantin the other context.50 ‘Likewise in youth, because of the process of growth, people are in a state similar to drunk, andyouth is pleasant’ ’ (Eth. Nic. 1154 b 10–12).51 The question is whether J. Ogle (1910) is correct in translating cholē as ‘gall bladder’ and whether itshould not be understood as ‘bile’ until later. The Greek text does not differentiate between the two.In Part. an. 676 b 11–13 Aristotle does differentiate between bile situated near the liver and bile thatis situated in the other parts of the body (cf. 677 b 9–10), but it is possible that the former refers tothe liquid in the gall bladder. [Cf. Lennox (2001) 288.]