OF THE SPLEEN. , 107 



and thus can impede its circulation : a fact, indeed, which will be 

 mentioned presently, renders this improbable. Besides, in rumi- 

 nating animals, as Blumenbach observes, it lies next the first 

 stomach or paunch, and if compressed, must be so before diges- 

 tion begins; and in proportion as the fourth stomach fills, and 

 digestion proceeds more actively, is the distension of the paunch 

 diminished. It varies in situation in different animals, not being 

 always attached to the stomach. The excitement, too, which the 

 liver must experience when chyme irritates the extremity of the 

 ductus choledochus, and still more the provision of a gall-bladder, 

 must render such aid from the spleen superfluous to the liver. 

 The infinite blood-vessels and excerning orifices of the stomach 

 cannot, likewise, but furnish sufficient gastric juice, from the 

 mere excitement which they must experience whenever the sto- 

 mach contains food. No other glands habitually excited to occa- 

 sional great activity have such a diverticulum. 



A third view of its influence as a diverticulum is, that it serves for 

 receiving a great part of the venous blood of the alimentary canal 

 during chymification, and especially during chylification. When 

 this process is going on, there must be a great increase of blood 

 flowing to the alimentary canal ; the vena portae, through which 

 it all flows, can dilate to only a certain extent, and, in order to pre- 

 vent such a congestion in the mesenteric veins as would retard 

 the circulation in the organs, the spleen allows an accumulation 

 in itself. Leuret and Lassaigne found the spleen of a dog weigh 

 a pound and a half in two hours after the application of a ligature 

 to the vena portae, while it ordinarily weighs but two ounces ; and 

 observe that it has a vermilion tint when an animal is fasting, but 

 grows turgid and of a dark purple when the chyme has passed 

 the pylorus. 



If the opinion of Erasistratus, that the spleen is useless, was a 

 little atheistical, the notion of Paley was not much better, that 

 the viscera contained, and the abdomen containing, are so clum- 

 sily adapted to each other, that a pad is necessary to make them 

 fit, just as hatters put stuffing under the leather of a hat which is 

 made too big for the head, " It is possible, in my opinion, that 

 the spleen may be merely a stuffing, a soft cushion to fill up a 

 vacuum or hollow, which, unless occupied, would leave the pack- 

 age loose and unsteady." 1 When I consider the stupendous 



1 Natural Theology, c. xi. 



