Chapter VI

The same holds with nutrition. Even if we grant that
veins may obtain their nutrient blood by virtue of the
_horror vacui_ (chap. i.), how could this explain the
nutrition of nerves? Erasistratus's hypothesis of minute
elemental nerves and vessels within the ordinary visible
nerves simply throws the difficulty further back. And is
Erasistratus's minute "simple" nerve susceptible of
further analysis, as the Atomists would assume? If so,
this is opposed to the conception of a constructive and
artistic Nature which Erasistratus himself shares with
Hippocrates and the writer. And if his minute nerve is
really elementary and not further divisible, then it
cannot, according to his own showing, contain a cavity;
therefore the _horror vacui_ does not apply to it. And
how could this principle apply to the restoration to its
original bulk of a part which had become thin through
disease, where more matter must become attached than
runs away? A quotation from Erasistratus shows that he
did acknowledge an "attraction," although not exactly in
the Hippocratic sense.

Chapter VII

In the last resort, the ultimate living elements
(Erasistratus's _simple vessels_) must draw in their
food by virtue of an inherent attractive faculty like
that which the lodestone exerts on iron. Thus the
process of anadosis, from beginning to end, can be
explained without assuming a _horror vacui_.