and thirdly into the foot, divided, like the hand, into tarsus, metatarsus and toes; and is composed of seven bones, ranged in two rows, two in one and five in the other; and the metatarsus is composed of five bones and the toes number five, each of three phalanges except the big toe which hath only two." Q "Which is the root of the veins?" "The aorta, from which they ramify, and they are many, none knoweth the tale of them save He who created them; but I repeat, it is said that they number three hundred and sixty. [FN#398] Moreover, Allah hath appointed the tongue as interpreter for the thought, the eyes to serve as lanterns, the nostrils to smell with, and the hands for prehensors. The liver is the seat of pity, the spleen of laughter [FN#399] and the kidneys of craft; the lungs are ventilators, the stomach the store- house, and the heart the prop and pillar of the body. When the heart is sound, the whole body is sound, and when the heart is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt." Q "What are the outward signs and symptoms evidencing disease in the members of the body, both external and internal?" "A physician, who is a man of understanding, looketh into the state of the body and is guided by the feel of the hands, [FN#400] according as they are firm or flabby, hot or cool, moist or dry. Internal disorders are also indicated by external symptoms, such as yellowness of the white of the eyes, which denoteth jaundice, and bending of the back, which denoteth disease of the lungs." And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Four Hundred and Fifty-first Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the damsel had described to the doctor the outer signs and symptoms quoth he, "Thou hast replied aright! now what are the internal
