SPLENIC APOPLEXY. 
515 
extensive fatality among some cattle in Norfolk, said to arise 
from splenic apoplexy. It was during the winter months, and 
the animals were being fed on oilcake, roots, hay, &c. On 
investigation he was led to the conclusion that the water 
must be implicated in the production of the malady. He 
communicated that opinion to the gentleman to whom the 
animals belonged; when he received the quaint reply, “You 
never made a greater mistake, for it is my custom never to 
allow my animals any water at all while in the sheds. 55 lie 
(Professor Simonds) hesitated not to express his belief that 
it was a want of water which induced a diseased condition 
of the blood in this instance. Of course such a state of 
things was altogether opposed to nature. To understand 
this the better, he would again remind them of the large 
quantity of water that naturally existed in blood, as this 
would show how the blood would be altered in its fluidity by 
the depriving an animal of water. The case would also 
help to prove that there were changes wrought in the blood 
by causes the very opposite of each other. 
An interesting question arose as to how far the spleen might 
be originally concerned in the production of a morbid state 
of the blood; and whether they were justified in regarding 
this affection as depending essentially on a change in the 
function of the spleen. The function of the spleen was, even 
at the present time, but ill understood, and its office might be 
said to be almost an enigma in science. On the one hand, many 
eminent physiologists were of opinion that the spleen was an*** 
organ that had to do with the disintegration of the red cor¬ 
puscles of the blood, which became broken up in its struc¬ 
ture; while, on the other hand, there were physiologists of 
equal eminence who declared that the spleen was a preparer of ^ 
the red cells. The prevalence of these two opinions showed 
that the true physiology of the spleen was not well understood. 
If he might presume to give an opinion, he would say that he 
inclined to the view that the spleen was an organ which exerted 
- a disintegrating power upon the red cells. He had been led 
to this conclusion by two or three different reasons. In the 
first place, he believed it was found that the total quantity 
of solid matter in the blood of the splenic vein was often less 
by upwards of one half than in the other vessels belonging to 
the so-called chylopoietic viscera. It was an anatomical 
fact also of great importance in determining this question 
that the splenic vein went to make up the vena portae of the 
liver, in order that the liver might exert its functions in 
purifying the blood brought from the spleen of deleterious 
materials which had entered into it in common with the 
