FUNCTIONS OF THE SPLEEN. 367 



splenic vein is also said to have a great proportion of water, and 

 to contain an unusual proportion of uric acid and other products 

 of tissue waste. 



The amount of blood in the spleen varies greatly at different 

 times. Shortly after meals the organ becomes turgid and remains 

 enlarged during the later periods of digestion. The size of the 

 spleen, which may be taken as a measure of its blood contents, is 

 also altered by many abnormal conditions of the blood. Thus, 

 in all kinds of fever, particularly ague and typhoid, and in syph- 

 ilis, the spleen becomes turgid, and in some of these diseases it 

 remains swollen for some time. In a remarkable disease, leuco- 

 cythsemia, in which the white blood cells are greatly increased 

 in number, and the red ones are comparatively diminished, the 

 spleen, in company with the lymphatic glands, is often found to 

 be profoundly altered and diseased, and commonly immensely en- 

 larged ; but on the other hand, advanced amyloid degeneration 

 of the spleen may occur without any notable alteration taking 

 place in the number or properties of the blood corpuscles. 



The spleen may be removed from the body without any marked 

 changes taking place in the blood or the economy generally. It 

 is said that if an animal whose spleen is extirpated be allowed 

 to live for a certain time, the lymphatic glands increase in size, 

 or become swollen. 



In attempting to assign a definite function to the spleen, all the 

 foregoing facts must be carefully reviewed, and the peculiarity of 

 its (1) structure, (2) chemical composition, (3) the changes the blood 

 undergoes while flowing through it, (4) the variations in blood 

 supply which follow normal and pathological changes in the 

 economy, and (5) the absence of effect following its extirpation, 

 must all be borne in mind. 



Its structure teaches us that it is intimately related to lymphatic 

 glands. The Malpighian bodies are simply lymph follicles, and 

 the pulp may be regarded as a sinus like that of a lymph-gland, 

 with this difference that it is traversed by blood instead of lymph. 

 The cell elements found in it indicate that not only white cells are 

 rapidly generated, but also that these cells have some peculiar 

 relationship to hsemoglobin, as they are often found to contain 



