lato mentions. Dio
says, that when we feed, the moist parts are about that separated from
the dry, and the first are carried down the windpipe, the other down the
weasand; and that the windpipe receives no parts of the food, but the
stomach, together with the dry parts, receives some portion of the
liquids. And this is probable, for the epiglottis lies over the
windpipe, as a fence and strainer, that the drink may get in by little
and little, lest descending in a large full stream, it stop the breath
and endanger the life. And therefore birds have no epiglottis, because
they do not sup or lap when they drink, but take up a little in their
beak, and let it run gently down their windpipe.

These testimonies I think are enough; and reason confirms Plato's
opinion by arguments drawn first from sense. For when the windpipe is
wounded, no drink will go down; but as if the pipe were broken it runs
out, though the weasand be whole and unhurt. And all know that in the
inflammation of the lungs the patient is troubled with extreme thirst;
the heat or dryness or some other cause, together with the inflammation,
making the appetite intense. But a stronger evidence than all these
follows. Those creatures that have very small lungs, or none at all,
neither want nor desire drink, because to some parts there belongs a
natural appetite to drink, and those that want those parts have no need
to drink, nor any appetite to be supplied by it. But more, the bladder
would seem unnecessary; for, if the weasand receives both meat and drink
and conveys it to the belly, the superfluous parts of the liquids would
not want a proper passage, one common one would suffice as a canal for
both that were conveyed to the same vessel by the same passage. But now
the bladder is distinct from the guts, because the drink goes from the
lungs, and the meat from the stomach; they being separated as we take
them down. And this is the reason that in our water nothing can be found
that either in smell or color resembles dry food. But if the drink were
mixed with the dry meat in the belly, it must be impregnant with its
qualities, and not come forth so simple and untinged. Besides, a stone
is never found in the stomach, though it is likely that the moisture
should be coagulated there as well as in the bladder, if all the
liquor were conveyed through the weasand then into the belly. But it is
probable at the weasand robs the windpipe of a sufficient quantity of
liquor