BİRİNCİ FEN · ÜÇÜNCÜ BÂB · ONUNCU FASIL · Dördüncü Madde
Fourth Article
Describes how the body's four humors (aḥlāt-i erba‘a) arise.
Beloved! It is known that the anatomists have said: The first fluids of the body are four humors, which are fluid and moist bodies into which foods are first transformed, and from which the nourishment of the body’s parts is drawn.
These four kinds of humoral mixtures are the best of which there is; blood is foremost. After blood comes phlegm. After phlegm comes yellow bile. After that comes black bile. Each of these humors has normal (tabī‘ī) and abnormal (ghair tabī‘ī) aspects. Normal blood is hot and moist, red in color, and sweet in taste. Its benefit is to nourish the flesh, fat, and organs. Abnormal blood is cold and its color is murky. It has a bitter taste and no benefit.
Normal phlegm is of moderate coolness, white like egg white in color, and sweet in taste. Its benefit is to be blood or to substitute for blood and nourish the organs. The temperament of abnormal phlegm is dry, its color is foul, and its taste is bitter, either salty or sour like vinegar.
Normal yellow bile is hot, tending towards a red color, and viscous. Its benefit is to mix with the blood and assist in forming the body’s parts. Its abnormality is greenish (ʿinjāri) in color, like copper rust, and is a poisonous fever-inducing substance within the body. Natural black bile is the sediment that remains at the bottom of natural blood and has a taste tending towards sweetness. [110/b]
Its place of origin is the spleen. Its benefit is to arouse hunger and desire. They call its abnormality bitter black bile.
The arising of the four humors occurs as follows: First, there is digestion through chewing what is eaten in the mouth. In this process, the entire mouth and the entire stomach are one and together. Thus, chewing possesses a power of digestion, for the previous taste and smell of a chewed thing disappears. When the chewed food, spread within the mouth, reaches the stomach, the stomach closes its opening, and the food is completely digested there. But this digestion does not occur solely through the heat of the stomach. From the left side comes the liver, from the right side the spleen, and the arteries and other vessels contained therein, the muscles possessing warmth, the heart above the stomach, and the warmth of all these; (approximately) the first digestion occurs in two to three hours. A fluid essence like keşkek water arises in the stomach. Then its thicker part finds a way to go from the stomach to the intestines. The thinner part is drawn into the liver through the vessels attached to the stomach, and through the fine capillaries attached to the liver.
The liver locks onto that subtle essence with its lock, becoming filled like a sponge. There it is cooked in about the same time as mentioned above, and the second digestion occurs. That cooked thing is red in color, and on its surface a substance like cream arises, and at its bottom a sediment forms. If it cooks too much, something burnt arises. If it cooks little, something like watermelon emerges. The cream that appears on the surface of the liquid that has been cooked there is yellow bile, and the sediment is black bile. These two are natural. But the thinner part of what has been overcooked is unwanted yellow bile (safrā-yi reddiye), and the thinner part of what has been undercooked is unwanted black bile (sevdā-yi reddiye). These two are abnormal. The thing resembling watermelon is normal phlegm.
The purest and most filtered state of all these is blood. But its water is abundant, which, before separating from the liver, mixes with the vessels that carry it to the kidneys, so that the kidneys take fats and blood to nourish themselves, and the remainder filters into the bladder, going through the urinary tract. The pure blood, having attained consistency, is drawn by the large vessel arising above the liver, finds its way through the vessels originating from it, then through smaller vessels called *ʿavādil*, then through even smaller vessels called *savākī-i ʿavādila*, then through capillary vessels called *rawādī-i savākī*, and finally takes a path through vessels like fibers, so that, by God’s decree, it permeates the organs and nourishes them.
“We glorify Allah, who created all things with wisdom, free from every imperfection. His glory is exalted.”