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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: foam--all this decomposition of tender flesh when intermingled with air is
termed by us white phlegm. And the whey or sediment of newly-formed phlegm
is sweat and tears, and includes the various daily discharges by which the
body is purified. Now all these become causes of disease when the blood is
not replenished in a natural manner by food and drink but gains bulk from
opposite sources in violation of the laws of nature. When the several
parts of the flesh are separated by disease, if the foundation remains, the
power of the disorder is only half as great, and there is still a prospect
of an easy recovery; but when that which binds the flesh to the bones is
diseased, and no longer being separated from the muscles and sinews, ceases
to give nourishment to the bone and to unite flesh and bone, and from being
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