[7.] Grind
, the Coptic from of which is ⲥⲓⲕⲓ. From the notion of ‘reducing to powder,’ that of the frequent word
‘wearing away,’ ‘decay,’ is derived.
[8.] Let my arteries be made fast, and let me have the enjoyment of the Breeze, or that I may have enjoyment. The oldest meaning of the word artery, ἀρτηρία, in Hippocrates, Aristotle and the earlier Latin writers is wind-pipe, and, in the plural, air-ducts. But, even when the word was also applied to what we call arteries, these were supposed to convey air whilst the veins conveyed blood. “Sanguis per venas in omne corpus diffunditur et spiritus per arterias” is the classic doctrine in Cicero (de Natura Deorum, 2, 55). Pliny says (Nat. Hist., XI, 89), “arteriae carent sensu: nam et sanguine.” This error is corrected by Galen, who has a treatise on the question “Whether Blood is naturally (κὰτα φύσιν) contained in the arteries?” The error of the ancients arose from the arteries always being found empty after death. The blood flowing from a wound inflicted upon them was inferred to have been intruded into them by the rupture of the veins. The Egyptian doctrine of the ‘arteries’