246 . OF THE FUNCTION 



The latter hypothesis, if a few objections were removed,* 

 would be much the most plausible of any hitherto 

 constructed. (B) 



NOTES. 



(A) This opinion was proposed a century ago, by Dr. Stukely, 

 Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, f 



(B) Sir Everard Home's friends having, among other expe- 

 riments, passed a ligature around the pyloric extremity of the 

 stomach of a dog, injected into this receptacle a solution of 

 rhubarb ; and, on killing the animal some few hours afterwards, 

 none of the absorbents of the stomach were found distended, nor 

 could any trace of rhubarb be detected in the liver, but evident 

 traces existed in the spleen and in the urine. When fluids had 



* For instance, the size of the spleen in those warm blooded animals which 

 never drink, or in bisulcous animals whose spleen adheres to the ruminant sto- 

 mach receiving the crude food only, but never the drink, which is prevented 

 from entering it by the well-known mechanism of a semicanal running from the 

 oesophagus to the omasum. 



■f" Of the Spleen, its description and history, uses and diseases, particularly 

 the vapors with their remedy. Being a lecture read at the Royal College of 

 Physicians. By Wm. Stukely, M.D. C.M.L. and S.R.S. London. 1722. 

 folio. Considering the spleen to consist entirely of complications and inoscu- 

 lations of arteries, veins, and cells, nerves, and (as Malpighi asserted) " a mus- 

 cular net-work of nbrillae," he supposed that it contracted and propelled its 

 blood through the splenic vessels into those of the stomach, when this organ 

 rcquir«l a larger supply during digestion, p. 37. He maintained likewise that 

 it accelerated the motion of the blood in the mesenteric veins when the circula- 

 tion in the vena ports was sluggish, and that it answered various other purposes. 

 Dr. Haighton (Lectures at Guy's Hospital), and Mr. Saumarez {New System 

 of Physiology) have explained its operation as a diverticulum in a very different 

 mannor. When the stomach is full, the compression experienced by the spleen 

 impedes its circulation, and the blood makes its way the more copiously into 

 the arteries of the stomach, liver, &c. 



