104 



CHAP. VI. 



OF THE FUNCTION OF THE SPLEEN. 



' THE Spleen a lies to the left of the liver, with which it has 

 considerable vascular communications ; by its oblong figure b , it 

 accommodates itself, as it were, to the contiguous viscera, but is 

 liable to great varieties in point of form, number, &c. c 



" Its colour is livid, its texture peculiar, soft, easily lacerated, 

 and therefore surrounded by two membranes, the interior of 

 which is proper to the spleen, and the exterior derived from the 

 omentum. 



" The situation and size of the spleen are no less various than 

 its figure, and depend upon the degree of the stomach's reple- 

 tion ; for, when the stomach is empty and lax, the spleen is tur- 

 gid; when the stomach is full, the spleen, being compressed, is 

 emptied. 



" It undergoes a continual, but gentle and equable, motion, de- 

 pendent upon respiration, under the chief instrument of which 

 the diaphragm, it is immediately situated. 



" Its texture was formerly supposed to be cellular, and com- 

 pared to the corpora cavernosa of the penis." 



Winslow says, " there are no venous ramifications in the ox and 

 sheep. Having entered into the large end of the organ, the vein 



a " Ch. Drelincourt, the younger, has carefully collected and concisely related 

 whatever was known up to his time, respecting the spleen; De lienosis t at the end 

 of his father's Opuscula. Boerhaave's edition, p. 710. sq. 



Consult, also, Chr. Lud. Roloff, Defabrica et functions lienis. Frf. ad Viadr. 

 1750. 4to. 



But among more recent writers, see L. J. P. Assolant, Recherches sur la 

 Rate, Par. 10. 8vo. 



C. F. Heussinger, uber den Ban und die Verrichtung der Milz. Isen. 1817. 

 8vo. 



And Chr. Hellw. Schmidt, Commentatio (which gained the royal prize) de 

 pathologia lienis, &c. Gott. 1816. 4to." 



b " Walter, tab. iii. G. 

 Mascagni, tab. xiv. P." 



c " See Sandifort, Natuur en genees-kundige Bibl. vol. ii. p. 345. sq." 



