BLOOD AND HJEMOPOIETIC ORGANS 101 



complicated by the fact that splenic anaemia can be cured 

 by the operation of splenectomy, which would appear to 

 indicate that the spleen in that disease is playing an 

 active role in the production of anaemia. The only con- 

 clusion which these considerations justify is that we are 

 still much in the dark as to the part played by the spleen 

 in haamolysis, although the balance of evidence is in 

 favour of the view that it serves at least as a filter in 

 removing effete corpuscles from the blood, whether or not 

 it can also give them the coup cle grace. In any case its 

 duties cannot be very important, or they must be capable 

 of being performed vicariously by other organs, for 

 removal of the spleen does not seem to lead to any 

 impairment of health.* Even here, however, we want 

 more light. What, for instance, would happen to a 

 spleenless man if he took malaria or enteric fever ? 



A slight enlargement of the lymphatic glands has been 

 noted after removal of the spleen, but neither constantly 

 nor to any striking degree. Probably this is com- 

 pensatory an effort to replace the lost adenoid tissue. 

 The blood shows at first an increase of lymphocytes 

 most likely as a consequence of the hypertrophy of the 

 glands, and later on a considerable rise in eosinophils, 

 the meaning of which is quite obscure. It cannot be 

 said that these observations throw any great light on the 

 functions of the organ. 



As the spleen is practically a sponge filled with blood, 

 its volume varies with fluctuations in the general blood- 

 pressure. Such variations, however, are devoid of 



* For the results of splenectomy in man, see Harris and Herzog, 

 Annals of Surgery, 1901, xxxiv. 111. 



