RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPLEEN AND PANCREAS. 379 



"From the bulk of evidence collected by Herzen there thus 

 seems to be very little room for doubt that, apart from haema- 

 topoietic, and possibly allied., functions possessed by the spleen, 

 the organ furnishes a product of 'internal secretion' which 

 causes in the pancreas the transformation of its inert zymogen 

 into active trypsin." 



Bellamy closes his article with a review of the criticisms 

 to which the researches of Schiff and Herzen have been sub- 

 mitted. In the experiments of Lussana, in 1868, the spleens 

 of three dogs were removed and the animals were subsequently 

 killed to ascertain whether the extract of their pancreas would 

 digest coagulated albumin. The pancreatic infusion of the 

 glands of two of the dogs digested 0.25 gramme of albumin in 

 24 hours; that of the third digested 1.10 grammes in the same 

 period of time. "The latter animal had, however, been killed 

 three hours after a meal: i.e., at a moment when, even had 

 it been in possession of its spleen, that organ would not yet 

 have commenced to become congested. The experiment, there- 

 fore, gave the result which might be expected, viz.: no di- 

 gestion, for nobody would accept seriously the digestion of 

 1.10 grammes, knowing that the pancreas of a dog when digest- 

 ing can dissolve from 50 to 60 grammes of albumin. . . ." 

 Indeed, the experiments of Lussana appear to us to be con- 

 firmatory of Schiff's and Herzen's views. 



Carvallo and Pachon also reported negatively, but, errors 

 in their experimental procedures having been brought to their 

 attention by Herzen, subsequent experiments caused Pachon 

 and a new collaborator, Gachet, to reach the conclusions sus- 

 taining the views of Schiff and Herzen to which we have re- 

 ferred on page 368. "Nay, they did more," says Bellamy; 

 "they invented an entirely new experiment, at once original 

 and ingenious, which consisted in realizing in vivo what Herzen 

 had hitherto only done in vitro. This experiment was as fol- 

 lows: A dog, which a long time previously had undergone 

 splenectomy, was anaesthetized and half its pancreas was re- 

 moved and immediately infused; at the same time a normal 

 dog, in the height of digestion, was killed and its congested 

 spleen was infused in water, and this infusion was injected 

 into the venous system of the spleenless dog; from 15 to 20 



