Hindu Medicine c5.s3.81

c5.s3.81

tapeworms within the human organism originate from eggs of animals that have been swallowed.” On the contrary, once some part of the organism “no longer acts as a mere moment or element of the whole but becomes ascendant,” that is, once it separates itself from the rest and becomes independent,—a state of affairs that in the case of the humors is described by the Hindu physician as “infuriated” (kupita)—“this separation may lead, e. g. in the case of ‘separated digestion’ (a disturbance of the stomach and of the intestines), even to the generation of animals within the bowels. Moreover, every animal has occasionally worms in its heart, its lungs or its brain.”