ENLAllGED SPLEEN OP A HORSE. 
215 
duly supplied with this fluid, would also tend to the engorge¬ 
ment of this organ. When the blood is unequally distributed 
over the body the spleen may act as a reservoir into which it 
would pass, without endangering the organs whose functions 
are necessary to be continuous to maintain life; therefore 
to them the spleen would act as a safety-valve. This, I have 
no doubt, is one of its uses, but it has also a far higher func¬ 
tion to perform in regard to the blood itself. I believe it is 
pretty well known that when the spleen is removed, or so 
far structurally diseased as not to be capable of performing 
any of its uses, that the relative pi’oportion of red and white 
blood-cells becomes very much altered—the white increasing 
and the red decreasing in number. Other changes are also 
said to take place in the blood which render it unfit for 
normal nutrition. Its physical properties are altered as well 
as its relative constituents ; it is paler in colour, and its specific 
gravity is diminished. 
Its unfitness for the due support of the tissues of which 
the animal body is composed seems to accord with the state¬ 
ment made as to the emaciated condition of the horse from 
which the spleen in question w^as taken. Not so, however, 
with the statements I have referred to of the organ having 
been extirpated and no perceptible loss of flesh supervening, 
or with those instances in animals in which the spleen is so 
very small as compared wdth the bulk of the animal to which 
it belongs that no physiological importance can be attached 
to its presence. In the latter instances I cannot but think 
that some other provision exists for that requisite renovation 
of the blood which is believed to be performed by the spleen; 
but wuth regard to the former statements, I think they must 
be looked upon as requiring further proof. 
We have had very many opportunities of examining diseased 
spleens, but I have never seen one so large or weighing so 
much as the one sent by Messrs. Rose and Perrins. It 
w'eighed no less than seventy-six pounds. About fifty-six 
pounds is the largest I have ever before seen. The magni¬ 
tude of this specimen is wonderful, when w'e consider that in 
a normal condition its w^eight wmuld not be more than from 
three to five pounds. 
Similar instances of abnormally enlarged spleens are 
recorded as having taken place in the human subject. 
Morgagni mentions a case in which this organ had increased 
to the enormous weight of thirty-five pounds. Our surprise 
at the spleen becoming of this magnitude is not so great 
when w'e are informed, on good authority, that a healthy 
spleen of a sheep, weighing only four ounces, can be made 
