280 BLOOD. 



analyses of the portal and hepatic venous blood, we are led to the 

 conclusion that the liver ought rather to be regarded as an organ 

 for regenerating the blood-corpuscles than as the seat of their 

 destruction, although we will not deny that blood-corpuscles, which 

 have usually been regarded as cells in an advanced state of develop- 

 ment, are conveyed from the splenic to the portal vein. On the 

 other hand, during digestion we found only normal blood-corpuscles 

 in the blood of the portal vein. Schultz's view cannot, therefore, 

 be received without a certain reservation. An opinion has 

 been lately advanced by Kolliker, and still more recently by Ecker, 

 from the histological investigation of the spleen, and more espe- 

 cially of the Malpighian bodies, that this organ which was previously 

 held to be the seat of the formation of blood, and indeed is still 

 regarded as such by Gerlach and Schaffner, is in fact the principal 

 seat of the solution and complete disintegration of the blood- 

 corpuscles. While such contending views prevail among the most 

 trustworthy histologists, we should not venture to give the pre- 

 ference to either of these opposite theories, if chemical analysis 

 did not here, as in so many cases, come to the aid of histological 

 inquiry. Scherer has made a very admirable investigation of the 

 spleen, which has led to several important discoveries ; the chief 

 result of which is, that in the splenic juice there occur all the most 

 remarkable transition stages of the products of decomposition of 

 nitrogenous and albuminous matters, and of the blood-pigment 

 itself. It seems highly probable from this investigation that the 

 spleen aids in the destruction of those blood-corpuscles which are 

 no longer able to accomplish their proper functions. We will, 

 however, defer the fuller consideration of this hypothesis, which 

 results from the simplest induction, till we treat of the chemico- 

 physiological nature of the spleen, having, moreover, already far 

 exceeded the limits originally prescribed to the present chapter on 

 the blood. 



