The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c9.9

c9.9

It is to be noted that, throughout, the fluid in the chyle or blood acts as the menstruum, though occasionally the lymph, which is itself a derivative from the chyle, is added, as in the case of the fatty tissue and the bones; and that each preceding element or constituent of the body (धातु—शरीरारम्भक धातु) takes up the proper organic compounds from the food chyle to form the next element or tissue. Throughout, also, the chemical changes are due to the metabolic heat which breaks up the compounds and recombines, but the operations, and even the vehicles perhaps, of this heat are different. For example, these heat-corpuscles in the biliary ducts produce the bile, but the bile-secretion is supposed to contain two distinct substances: (1) a digestive fluid in the duodenum (पित्ताशय), which acts on the chyme to produce the chyle (अन्नस्य पक्तृ पाचकाख्यं पित्तं); and (2) a colouring bile-substance in the liver, which adds a red pigment to the chyle and transforms it into blood (रञ्जकाख्यं पित्तं). Besides, there are three other biles, of which the aqueous humour in the eye is supposed to be one (आलोचकं पित्तं), helping in the formation of visual images (रुपग्राहर्क). This is the view of Dhanvantari and his school, but Âtreya holds there is no evidence that the bile really performs the first (digestive) function, for this can be accounted for by the animal heat arising from the working of the whole bodily machine.