LIVER IN THE OX. Ill 



owing to its great size, was commonly ranked with these, not- 

 withstanding that no duct had ever been discovered, or any 

 secretion like the bile, the pancreatic juice, the saliva, or the 

 urine. Contrasted with the conglomerate glands were the 

 conglobate glands organs with no evident secretion through 

 which the absorbent vessels, both lacteal and lymphatic, were 

 observed to pass in their progress towards the great trunks 

 and the thoracic duct. Though these do not throw forth any 

 distinct secretion, yet there is reason to believe that the fluid 

 carried into them by the vasa inferentia undergoes important 

 changes before being brought out from them by the vasa 

 efferentia. Thus their similitude to glands is supposed to be 

 established ; and as the spleen is believed to produce analogous 

 changes on the fluids conveyed into it, it has been transferred 

 from the order of conglomerate glands, to which its title was 

 very equivocal, and ranked with the conglobate, its old claim 

 to being a chylopoetic organ being recognised under this new 

 view of its functions. The spleen is also ranked under the new 

 order of glands termed blood-glands or vascular glands. 



The liver is the largest gland in the body, even of ruminants, 

 in which it is of less size proportionately than in the horse and 

 most mammals. It lies in the right hypochondrium, but does 

 not extend so far across the abdominal cavity as in man or in 

 the horse, as if its development in breadth were restrained by 

 the great space occupied by the four stomachs. It is reduced, 

 in short, to one principal lobe, with one or two tubercles at 

 most adhering to its posterior aspect near its base, and these 

 take the place of lateral lobes and lobules. On the diaphrag- 

 matic aspect, the liver of the ox presents one united mass, 

 thicker above and to the right, becoming thinner towards its 

 margin, which presents a sharp edge. A suspensory ligament 

 divides this aspect into two unequal portions, of which that on 

 the right is much the larger. Indeed, as seen on the diaphrag- 



