Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

308 Late antiquitythe pneuma to reside and to originate in the body and to play a major partin physiological processes such as digestion and muscular movement.From some passages it appears that this pneuma is to be regarded as aninheritance of Asclepiadean physiology:(6) neque ullam digestionem in nobis esse [sc. dicit Asclepiades], sed solutionemciborum in uentre fieri crudam et per singulas particulas corporis ire, ut per omnestenuis uias penetrare uideatur, quod appellauit leptomeres, sed nos intelligimusspiritum; et neque inquit feruentis qualitatis neque frigidae esse nimiae suae tenuitatiscausa neque alium quemlibet sensum tactus habere, sed per uias receptaculorumnutrimenti nunc arteriam, nunc neruum uel uenam uel carnem fieri. (Acut.1.14.113)And [Asclepiades says that] there is no digestion in us, but a crude dissolution offoods takes place in the stomach, and it moves through each individual part ofthe body, so that it looks as if it penetrates through all narrow passages; this hecalls leptomeres (‘of fine parts’), which is what we mean by pneuma; this (he says)has neither the quality of hot nor that of cold because of its extreme thinness, nordoes it have any other tangible quality, but as it passes through the passages of theparts that receive nourishment, it becomes now artery, now sinew, now vein, nowflesh.(7) Item aliqui Asclepiadis sectatores gestationes et lauacra et uaporationes cataplasmatumatque malagmatum excluserunt in iecorosis suspicantes tenuissimorumcorpusculorum fore consensum, hoc est spiritus, quem leptomerian eorumprinceps appellauit, atque in egestorum constrictione falsitate causarum adiutoriamagna recusantes. (Chron. 3.4.65)Again, some followers of Asclepiades have excluded passive exercise, bathing, andfomentations by means of poultices and emollient plasters in the case of peoplesuffering from disease of the liver, because they suspected that there wouldbe a sympathetic affection of the finest particles, that is, of pneuma, whichtheir master called leptomereia, and in a situation of congestion of matter theyrefuse to employ important remedies because of their false assumptions aboutcauses.From these passages it emerges that spiritus is the Methodist term for Asclepiades’notion of the leptomeres. 49 However, it is not clear that this is truein all cases, and even if it is, whether this is a satisfactory solution to ourparadox. For passage (7) shows that the Methodists were not only criticalof Asclepiades’ therapeutics, but also of the physiological justification heoffered for it. This raises the question why certain parts of Asclepiades’physiology were acceptable to Methodists while certain others met with49 For a discussion of this notion in Asclepiades, see Vallance (1990) 50–79.