‘Again, the muscles of the arms, legs, and thighs contain vessels
full of humours; and just as the belly has within it viscera
containing nourishment, so the muscles of arms, legs, and thighs
have both vessels and the [contained] humours which preserve man’s
strength.... But when a man runs or walks quickly, the nerves about
the knees and the venules in the knees become distended. And since
they are united with the vessels of the legs, which are numerous
and intercommunicate in a net-like manner, they conduct the fatigue
to the vessels of the liver, and thus they reach the vessels of the
brain, and so send the fatigue throughout the body. But the vessels
from the reins pass rather to the left leg than to the right,
because the right leg gets its strength more from the heat of the
liver. And the vessels of the right leg ascend as far as the renal
and kindred vessels, and these latter vessels unite with those of
the kidney. And the liver warms the reins which lie in the fatness
derived from the humours....
‘The humours in man are distributed in just measure. But when they
affect the veins of the liver, his humidity is decreased and also
the humidity of the chest is attenuated; so that thus dried, he
falls into disease of such a nature that the phlegm is dry and
toxic and ascends to the brain. There it produces headache and pain
in the eyes and wasting of the marrow, and thus if the moon is in
default he may develop the falling evil [epilepsy].
‘The humidity also which is in the umbilicus is dispersed by the
same humours, and turned into dryness and hardness, so that the
flesh becomes ulcerated and scabby as though he were leprous,
if indeed he do not actually become so. And the vessels of his
testicles, being adversely affected by these humours, similarly
disturb the other vessels, so that the proper humidity is dried up
within them; and thus, the humours being withdrawn, impetigos may
arise ... and the marrow of the bones and the vessels of the flesh
are dried up, and so the man becomes chronically ill, dragging out
his days in languor.
‘But sometimes the humours affect breast and liver ... so that
various foolish thoughts arise ... and they ascend to the brain
and infect it and again descend to the stomach and generate fevers
there, so that the man is long sick. Yet again they vex the minor
vessels of the ear with superfluity of phlegm; or with the same
phlegm they infect the vessels of the lung, so that he coughs and
can scarce breathe; and the phlegm may pass thence into the vessels
of the heart and give him pain there, or the pain may pass into the
side, exciting pleurisy; under such circumstances also, the moon
being in defect, the man may lapse into the falling sickness.’[106]
#/
Sometimes Hildegard’s anatomical ideas can be paralleled among her
contemporaries. Thus the following passage on the relationship of the
planets to the brain is well illustrated by a diagram of Herrade de
Landsberg.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. From Herrade de Landsberg’s _Hortus deliciarum_,
after Straub and Keller’s reproduction.[107]]
‘From the summit of the vessel of the brain to the extremity of the
forehead seven equal spaces can be distinguished. Here the seven
planets are designated, the uppermost planet in the highest part,
the moon in front, the sun in the middle and the other planets
distributed among the other spaces’ (Fig. 9).
[Illustration: From WIESBADEN CODEX B fo. 41 v