348 ON THE ANATOMICAL PECULIARITIES 
A still more remarkable peculiarity is, that these com- 
municating cells have no outlet or vent, and communicate 
with the cavity of the intestinal tube by the duodenal open- 
ing only. In the specimen of the sturgeon dissected by me, 
they were filled with alimentary matter in a pulpy state, 
and of the same consistence and physical characters as that 
in the duodenum. From the arrangement now mentioned, 
it results that this alimentary matter cannot escape from the 
cells by any other route than that by which it had entered 
them. 
On the nature and uses of this peculiar organ, it is rea- 
sonable to make some inquiry ; but hitherto little satisfac- 
tory information regarding it has been communicated. The 
zootomists by whom the organ has been noticed, have been 
satisfied either with admiring its peculiarities of structure, 
or with drawing some vague comparisons between it and 
the pancreas of warm-blooded animals. The first work, I 
believe, in which this subject receives any attention, is the 
Observations of the Amsterdam physicians, ascribed chiefly 
to Swammerdam, in which they are named Appendices 
PylorkcB, and are supposed to secrete a fluid which exer- 
cises considerable influence on the process of chylification. 
The denomination is not very happy ; for though, in some 
fishes, they open at the pylorus^ or lower end of the sto- 
mach, in a much larger proportion they are placed at the 
beginning of the duodenum, with which they communicate, 
and hence would merit rather the epithet of Duodenal Ap- 
pendages. 
The next work in which this structure is remarked, is 
that of Samuel Collins, an anatomist who, for diligence in 
prosecuting the study of zootomy, and recording several 
curious facts regarding the structure of the lower animals, 
compared with that of the human subject, deserves to be 
