2 74 Mayow 



digestion in an always even flow and without any 

 regulation, yet when the animal has come to the 

 limit of its growth it takes food at fixed periods, 

 and its stomach is sometimes filled with food and 

 sometimes nearly empty : and hence it is necessary 

 that the nitro-aerial particles should be carried now 

 in larger now in smaller abundance to the viscera of 

 digestion. But that the afflux of nitro-aerial spirits 

 to the viscera should take place under control, it is 

 necessary that there should be some organ in the 

 parenchyma of which the excess of nitro-aerial spirits 

 may be deposited, as has been shown above. 



As the primary function of the spleen has no place 

 in infants, so neither is it necessary that its other 

 office, that is, the more intense effervescence of the 

 blood (which we have said takes place in the spleen), 

 should be exercised in infants. For it is probable 

 that the said fermentation excited in the spleen has 

 for its chief eff"ect the bringing of the saline- 

 sulphureous particles of the blood to a proper 

 volatility for motive and procreative functions, and 

 these functions do not well suit a tender age. 



We gather from what follows that an effervescence 

 of that sort is excited in the parenchyma of the 

 spleen by the nitro-aerial particles brought along the 

 nerves and mixed with the saline-sulphureous particles 

 of the blood. 



For it has been made out by observation that if the 

 spleen is obstructed by scirrhus, the mass of the blood 

 lacks its proper fermentation and becomes crude and 

 vapid, so that dropsy and chlorosis often result. 

 But I confess I do not know whence that fermenta- 

 tion excited in the spleen should arise, unless from 

 nitro-aerial particles along with the saline-sulphureous 

 particles of the blood ; for I cannot agree with those 



