GLANDS. 485 



lacunae of the spleen. This liquid, when diluted with serum 

 and examined under the microscope, is found to contain two 

 kinds of corpuscles, one sort being apparently identical 

 with ordinary blood-corpuscles, and the other with the 

 globules characteristic of the lymph and abundant in the 

 lymphatic glands. The remaining fibrous substance consists 

 entirely of capillary blood-vessels and lymphatics, with minute 

 corpuscles, much smaller than blood-corpuscles, varying in 

 size from about l-6000th to 1 -7000th of an inch, of spherical 

 form, and usually corrugated on the surface. These lie in 

 great numbers in the meshes of the sanguiferous capillaries ; 

 and the minute lymphatics are described by Dr. E. as con- 

 nected with the splenic corpuscles, and apparently arising 

 from them. Lying in the midst of the parenchyma, are 

 found a large number of bodies, of about a third of a line in 

 diameter, which are evidently in close connection with the 

 vascular system ; these have been long known as the Mal- 

 pighian bodies of the spleen, after the name of their dis- 

 coverer ; but since his time, their existence has been denied, 

 or other appearances have been mistaken for them. 



" According to Dr. E., they in all respects resemble the 

 mesenteric, or lymphatic glands in miniature, consisting as 

 they do of convoluted masses of blood-vessels and lymphatics, 

 united together by elastic tissue, so as to possess considerable 

 firmness : and they further correspond with them in this 

 that the lymph they contain, which was quite transparent in 

 their afferent lymphatics, now becomes somewhat milky, 

 from containing a large number of lymph globules." 



Dr. Hanfield Jones has noticed the occurrence of certain 

 peculiar corpuscles in the spleen of various animals, including 

 that of fishes, mammals, and man; these corpuscles he de- 

 scribes as follows * : 



" In the spleens of various animals there may often be seen 

 ii number of minute corpuscles of a yellow colour, varying 

 from' a dark to a pale hue ; they occur sometimes singly, but 

 mostly in groups, which I have sometimes thought were 



* Medical Gazette, 1847, p. 141. 



