'GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY OF THE EPITHELIUMS. 207 



one for every two hundred and twenty red globules, the venous 

 blood which flows out contains one to sixty (His) and even 

 one to five or four. (Vierordt, Funke.) The influence which 

 the spleen exercises in relation to the red globules is still so 

 far from being decided, that some maintain that it is a seat 

 of destruction of these elements (Beclard, Kolliker), while, 

 according to others, it is a laboratory for their production 

 (Funke, J. Bennett). 



The following facts are adduced as proofs of its destructive 

 function of the red globules: an animal in which ablation 

 of the spleen has been accomplished, exists longer without 

 food than one which is sound : its blood does not change us 

 quickly into red globules ; the lymph which comes from the 

 spleen (for this organ also contains lymphatic vessels) is 

 generally tinged with red. Some observers have remarked 

 a sort of plethora (or hyperglobulia) in animals whose spleen 

 has been removed ; but these observations do not agree with 

 the results furnished by clinical surgery. 



The red globules are evidently destroyed in the spleen, as 

 in any organ or tissue in which active transformation takes 

 place ; this may be readily observed in pathological cases, in 

 which we find a large quantity of remains of the coloring 

 matter of the red globules (paludal cachexia) : but it is 

 still more likely that a large number of red globules are 

 formed in the spleen, in the physiological condition, in the 

 sense that the white globules which were produced in it, are 

 beginning to change into colored blood corpuscles : indeed, 

 an abundance of globules, in an intermediate state between 

 the white and the red, are found in the splenic veins, as 

 also red globules, possessing all the features which distin- 

 guish young elements (small size, less flattened shape, greater 

 resistance to the action of water, etc.). 



There are also some glandular organs, resembling, no doubt, 

 nearly the class of lymphatic ganglions and spleen ; such as 

 the thyroid gland, the thymus, and, perhaps, the supra-renal 

 capsules; but our anatomical ideas on these subjects are not 

 yet sufficiently precise, and our physiological theories are too 

 hypothetical, to allow us to attempt profitably the study of 

 these so-called vascular blood glands. 



