220 



OF ABSORPTION AND SANGUIFICATION. 



FIG. 93. 



the colorless parenchyma in which they are imbedded. Their walls are 



covered with a plexus of capillaries, 

 and branches from these traverse 

 their interior, just as in the case of 

 the Peyerian and Absorbent glandu- 

 lae. The number and size of the 

 Malpighian corpuscles bear a re- 

 markable relation to the general 

 state of nutrition ; being much the 

 greatest in healthy well fed animals, 

 whilst in those that have been ill- 

 fed they diminish extremely, and 

 in those that have been starved they 

 disappear altogether. Hence it has 

 happened that their existence in the 

 Human species has been denied ; 

 the opportunity of examining sub- 

 jects not reduced by previous ab- 

 stinence, being one that compara- 

 tively seldom occurs. There is no 

 doubt, however, of their normal 

 presence in the spleen of Man, as in 

 that of other Mammalia. Diffused 

 amidst the colorless parenchyma, 

 but in very variable amount, colored 

 cells are found, some of which are un- 

 changed blood-corpuscles, whilst others appear to be blood-disks in various 

 stages of retrograde metamorphosis ; these gradually diminishing in size, and 

 assuming a golden-yellow, brownish-red, or even blackish color, or having 

 the pigmentary matter crystallized in a rod-like form in their interior; or, 



FIG. 94. 



Branch of Splenic Artery, the ramifications of which 

 are studded with Malpighian corpuscles. 



Malpighian corpuscle from the spleen of the Hedgehog, with its vascular supply: 6, splenic pulp, 

 with the intermediary blood- passages ; c, the rootlets of the veins. 



again, breaking up into detached pigment-granules. Occasionally (though 

 very rarely in the Human subject) little clusters of from 1 to 20 of such de- 

 generating blood-corpuscles are found, included in a vesicular envelope, origi- 

 nally figured by Mr. Gulliver. 1 Several of these bodies are seen in the blood 



1 Lond. and Edin. Phil. Mag., 1842, p. 169, Fig. 2. 



