[ 243 ] 



SECT. XXVI. 



OF THE FUNCTION OF THE SPLEEN. 



388. The Spleen* lies to the left of the liver, with 

 which it has considerable vascular communications; 

 its figure is oblong ;f it applies itself to the contiguous 

 viscera, and is liable to great varieties in point of 

 form, number, &c. % 



389. Its colour is livid/ its texture singular, soft, 

 easily lacerated, and therefore surrounded by two mem- 

 branes, the interior of which is proper to the spleen 

 and the exterior derived from the omentum. 



390. The situation and size of the spleen are no less 

 various than its figure, and depend upon the degree of 

 the stomach's repletion; for, when the stomach is 

 empty and lax, the spleen is turgid ; when the stomach 

 is full, the spleen, being compressed, is emptied. 



It undergoes a continual but gentle and equable 

 motion, dependent upon respiration, under the chief 

 instrument of which — the diaphragm, it is immediately 

 situated. 



391. Its texture was formerly supposed to be cellular, 



* Ch. Drelincourt, the younger, has carefully collected and concisely related 

 whatever was known up to his time, respecting the spleen, De lienosis, at the 

 end of his father's Opuscula. Boerhaave's edition, p. 710 sq. 



Also Chr. Lud. Roloff, Defabrica et functiwne lienis. Frf. ad Viadr. 1750. 4to. 



f Walter, tab. iii. G. 



Mascagni, tab. xiv. P. 



\ See Sandifort, Natuur en genees-kuntfige Bibt. Vol. ii. p. 345 sq. 



R 2 



