Aristotle ON THE PARTS OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by W. Ogle.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

144 pages - You are on Page 82

Part 9

What has been said of the bladder is equally true of the kidneys. For these also are wanting in all animals that are clad with feathers or with scales or with scale-like plates; the sea and land tortoises forming the only exception. In some of the birds, however, there are flattened kidney like bodies, as though the flesh allotted to the formation of the kidneys, unable to find one single place of sufficient size, had been scattered over several.

The Emys has neither bladder nor kidneys. For the softness of its shell allows of the ready transpiration of fluid; and for this reason neither of the organs mentioned exists in this animal. All other animals, however, whose lung contains blood are, as before said, provided with kidneys. For nature uses these organs for two separate purposes, namely for the excretion of the residual fluid, and to subserve the blood-vessels, a channel leading to them from the great vessel.

In the centre of the kidney is a cavity of variable size. This is the case in all animals, excepting the seal. The kidneys of this animal are more solid than those of any other, and in form resemble the kidneys of the ox. The human kidneys are of similar shape; being as it were made up of numerous small kidneys, and not presenting one unbroken surface like the kidneys of sheep and other quadrupeds. For this reason, should the kidneys of a man be once attacked by disease, the malady is not easily expelled. For it is as though many kidneys were diseased and not merely one; which naturally enhances the difficulties of a cure.

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