The Retentive Faculty

These facts show that the stomach, uterus, and bladders possess certain inborn faculties which are:

• retentive of their own proper qualities
• eliminative of those that are foreign.

The bladder by the liver draws bile into itself, while it is also quite obvious that it eliminates this daily into the stomach.

If the eliminative were to succeed the attractive faculty and there were not a retentive faculty between the two, there would be found, on every occasion that animals were dissected, an equal quantity of bile in the gall-bladder. This however, we do not find.

The bladder is sometimes observed to be very full, sometimes quite empty. At other times you find in it various intermediate degrees of fulness, just as is the case with the other bladder—that which receives the urine;

Even without resorting to anatomy we may observe that the urinary bladder continues to collect urine up to the time that it becomes uncomfortable through the increasing quantity of urine or the irritation caused by its acidity—the presumption thus being that here, too, there is a retentive faculty.

Diarrhea and Vomiting

When the stomach is irritated by acidity, it gets rid of the undigested food earlier than proper.

Diarrhoea happens when the stomach is:

• oppressed by the quantity of its contents, or
• disordered from the co-existence of both conditions

Vomiting also is an affection of the upper part of the stomach analogous to diarrhoea.

It occurs when the stomach is overloaded or is unable to stand the quality of the food or surplus substances which it contains.

Thus, when such a condition develops in the lower parts of the stomach, while the parts about the inlet are normal, it ends in diarrhoea, whereas if this condition is in the upper stomach, the lower parts being normal, it ends in vomiting.

Chapter 6: Vomitting

This may often be clearly observed in those who are disinclined for food;

When obliged to eat, they have not the strength to swallow.

Even if they force themselves to do so, they cannot retain the food, but at once vomit it up.

Those especially who have a dislike to some particular kind of food, sometimes take it under compulsion, and then promptly bring it up.

Or, if they force themselves to keep it down, they are nauseated and feel their stomach turned up, and endeavouring to relieve itself of its discomfort.

Thus, there must exist in almost all parts of the animal a certain inclination or appetite for their own special quality, and an aversion to the foreign quality.

When they feel an inclination they should attract.

When they feel aversion they should expel.

Both the attractive and the propulsive faculties have been demonstrated to exist in everything.325

But if there be an inclination or attraction, there will also be some benefit derived; for no existing thing attracts anything else for the mere sake of attracting, but in order to benefit by what is acquired by the attraction. And of course it cannot benefit by it if it cannot retain it.

Herein, then, again, the retentive faculty is shown to have its necessary origin: for the stomach obviously inclines towards its own proper qualities and turns away from those that are foreign to it.326

But if it aims at and attracts its food and benefits by it while retaining and contracting upon it, we may also expect that there will be some termination to the benefit received, and that thereafter will come the time for the exercise of the eliminative faculty.