54 
Mr. Home on the Uses, &c. 
On examining the parts after death, the pylorus was found 
to be completely secured ; the stomach contained about two 
ounces of fluid ; none of the absorbent vessels passing from its 
great curvature were in a distended state so as to be rendered 
visible. The spleen was turgid as in the former experiment, 
and the urinary bladder full of urine. 
This urine tested by the alkali, received a deeper tinge of 
rhubarb than the human urine, after rhubarb had been taken 
three hours by the mouth, and in other respects resembled it. 
When the spleen was cut into, the cells were particularly 
large and distinct. A portion of it was then macerated in two 
drams of water for ten minutes in a glass vial. All the parts 
were exposed to the water, by its being divided in all direc- 
tions. The water thus impregnated was strained off and tested 
by the alkali, and immediately the reddish brown colour was 
produced in the centre, and no where else, but in less than a 
minute it began to diffuse itself, and extended over the whole. 
A similar portion of the liver was treated in the same way, 
and the alkali was added to the strained liquor, but no change 
took place in it whatever. 
In this experiment the rhubarb was detected in the juices 
of the spleen as well as in the urine ; and as there was no 
appearance of it in the liver, it could not have arrived there 
through the medium of the common absorbents carrying it 
into the thoracic duct, and afterwards into the circulation of 
the blood. 
The discovery of this fact I consider to be of sufficient im- 
portance to be announced to the Society, that when it is thus 
made public, I may be at liberty more openly, and on a more 
extensive scale of experiments, to prosecute the enquiry. 
