l^g DIRECT PASSAGE fEOM THE STOMACH TO THE BI.OOO. 



but none per- showed me a section of it, in which the cells were larger, and 

 lirer. more distinct, than I had ever seen them in a dog. There 



was a slight tinge of rhubarb in the infusion from the spleen. 

 A similar infusion was made of the liver; but the quantity 

 of blood contained in it being much greater than in the 

 spleen, the appearance was not sufficiently distinct to decide 

 whether it contained rhubarb or not. These experiments 

 appear completely to establish the fact, that the rhubarb 

 did not pass through the thoracic duct, and therefore muit 

 have got into the circulation of the blood by some other 

 channel. They likewise completely overturn the opinion I 

 had adopted of the spleen being the medium by which the 

 rhubarb had been conveyed, and show that the spleen an- 

 swers some other purposes in the animal economy. 

 The rhubarb The rhubarb found in the spleen does not arrive there be- 

 probably de- ^ ^.g jj. enters the circulation, it is therefore most probably 

 posited in the • i • i ii • i <. e ■ 



spleen in the afterwards deposited m the cells m the form of a secretion. 



forni of a se- That the rhubarb goes into the circulation is proved by my 

 cretion. ^ ^ . , . , . , 1 r , , . 



former experiments, in which it was detected m the splenic 



vein. The prussiate of potash is hardly to be discovered in 

 the blood of a living animal, since the proportion which 

 strikes a blue colour on the addition of solution of iron, is 

 greater than the circulating fluids can be expected to contain 

 at any one time, as it goes oif by the secretions nearly as fast 

 as it is received into the blood vessels. In a moderately 

 sized ass more than two drams must be dissolved in the 

 blood before its presence there can be detected. 



That the fluid contained in the cells of the spleen is se- 

 creted there, is rendered highly probable, since it is most 

 abundant while the digestive organs are employed, and 

 scarcely at all met with when the animal has been some time 

 without food. The great objection to this opinion is, ;there 



The lympha- jjeing no excretory duct but the lymphatic vessels ol' the 

 tics of the o -^ , . , , 



•pleen proba- spleen ; these however are both larger and more numerous 

 bly form its ^^^^^ j^j g^^y other organ ; they are found in the ass to form 

 excretory duct. •' , , • , ■ , , , 



one common trunk, which opens into a large gland o,a the 



side of the thoracic duct, just above the receptaculum chyli; 

 and when the quicksilver is made to pass through the 

 branches of this gland, there is a trunk equally larg,'e on the 

 opposite side, which makes an angle, and then tf;vmioRtes 



