PANCREAS. 



95 



parts of the gland open into the biliary duct 

 as it passes through. The organ maintains 

 the same relations in the Toad ; in the com- 

 mon toad it is yellow, straight, and elon- 

 gated. In the Tritons it is perceived with 

 difficulty; Cuvier describes it as appearing 

 like a semi-transparent riband sending one 

 bifurcation to the spleen, and another to the 

 duodenum at the point of insertion of the 

 biliary canals. In the Siren it resembles in 

 miniature, as far as external appearance goes, 

 the pancreas of the sturgeon, and joins the 

 intestine by many parallel canals considerably 

 in front of the cystic. 



In Ophidian reptiles, the pancreas varies 

 greatly both in volume and form ; sometimes 

 it is elongated, often globular and pyramidal, 

 sometimes divided into two triangular lobes, 

 and this variety of form obtains even in con- 

 generic species ; thus, in the Ccecilia albi- 

 ventrii it is thick, and pyramidal, and in 

 the Cfecilia intcrrupta, lumbrico'ides, and den- 

 fata, it is straight, elongated and slightly 

 forked. It is always placed to the right of the 

 commencement of the intestinal canal and 

 head of the stomach. Its substance is red 

 with a tint of yellow, and soft, more rarely 

 firm and consistent, and often divided into 

 distinct lobes. In this respect it does not at 

 all resemble the salivary glands of these ani- 

 mals, but those only of mammifera. Its inti- 

 mate union with the spleen is very remarkable 

 in the true serpents, whilst in the genus Anguis 

 and CfEcilia the contact and adhesion at this 

 point does not exist. 



In the Saurian reptilia the pancreas is often 

 applied against the pyloric portion of the 

 stomach and the commencement of the duo- 

 denum ; or it may be said to have two branches 

 parallel to the stomachal sac, one of which 

 accompanies the biliary canal, and the other 

 adheres to the spleen, and these reuniting 

 terminate at a point more or less approaching 

 the pylorus ; it is almost always contiguous 

 to the choledoch canal, which often traverses 

 it before arriving at the intestine. According 

 to Cuvier, its volume is greater in saurians living 

 on vegetable food ; and its smallness in those 

 that are carnivorous he believes to be com- 

 pensated, as in fish, by the agency of the 

 mucous and intestinal secretion of the abun- 

 dant glandular apparatus with which their 

 alimentary canal is furnished. In the Lacer- 

 tidce, and Iguanidcs, the pancreas is very much 

 developed. 



Chelonia. " In many respects," says Cuvier, 

 " the animals of this order are in the same 

 conditions as birds. The jaws are similarly 

 armed, the salivary glands are but little de- 

 veloped, and as the volume and importance 

 of the pancreas in birds has appeared to us 

 to be in inverse ratio to the means of masti- 

 cation and insalivation, we might antecedently 

 conclude that the chelonia would also pos- 

 sess a considerable pancreas." At the same 

 time he adds, that the superior masticatory 

 power of the horny jaws of the chelonia over 

 the bills of birds, and their taking their prey 

 generally in the water, considerably impairs 



the closeness of the analogy. In the com- 

 mon turtle^ the pancreas (j%. 72.) firmly ad- 



Fig. 72. 



Pancreas of the Turtle, with the duodenal curvature 

 thrown up, shouring its loose and branched cha- 

 racter, its embrace of the spleen, its long caudate 

 process accompanying the duodenum, and its duct 

 entering the intestine higher up. 



s, spleen ; m, branch of superior mesenteric artery ; 

 c, gall-bladder. 



heres to and embraces the spleen ; from that 

 point it radiates towards the duodenum, being 

 thick, amassed, and irregularly arborescent 

 above and to the right, and continued in a 

 long and tapering tail to the left : it is closely 

 attached to the duodenum along its whole 

 extent, a distance of about fifteen inches. The 

 duct, nearly as large as in the human subject, 

 passes to the right, and enters obliquely the 

 choledoch duct, as that canal is perforating the 

 thick intestinal wall, in a way very analogous 

 to that already described in the human sub- 

 ject. The gland substance has a very peculiar 

 appearance ; it is dense, opaque, nearly white, 

 and along its edges the lobules are scattered 

 in the clear gelatinous-looking cellular tissue 

 in which the gland is embedded, and appear 

 to be quite distinct from each other ; but on 

 dissecting them out from this gelatinous bed, 

 they are seen to be attached by little pedicles 

 in some of gland substance, in some apparently 

 merely of the duct of the lobule and its 

 vessels to the rest of the gland. It is the 

 most arborescent and ramified pancreas I have 

 seen, next to the rodents, but not so flattened, 

 nor spread out so much in one plane. When 

 looked at as an opaque object with a low 

 power (one inch focal distance), the mapping 

 out of the follicles is very prettily seen ; but 

 the same circumstance that lends them their 



