[p. 247]
XI
[11arg] That Plutarch in his Symposiacs defended the opinion of Plato about the structure and nature of the stomach, and of the tube which is called τραχεῖα, against the physician Erasistratus, urging the authority of the ancient physician Hippocrates.BOTH Plutarch 1 and certain other learned men have written that Plato was criticized by the famous physician Erasistratus, 2 because he said 3 that drink went to the lungs and having sufficiently moistened them, flowed through them, since they are somewhat porous, and from there passed into the bladder. They declared that the originator of that error was Alcaeus, who wrote 4 in his poems:
Wet now the lungs with wine; the dog-star shines,but that Erasistratus himself declared 5 that there were two little canals, so to speak, or pipes, and that they extended downward from the throat; that through one of these all food and drink passed and went into the stomach, and from there were carried into the belly, which the Greeks call ἡ κάτω κοιλία. That there it is reduced and digested and then the drier excrement passes into the bowels, which the Greeks call κόλον, 6 and the moisture through the kidneys into the bladder. But through the other tube, which the Greeks call the τραχεῖα ἀρτηρία, or “rough windpipe,” the breath passes from the lips into the lungs, and from there goes back into the mouth and nostrils, and along this same road a passage for the voice also is made; and lest drink
