Of the spleen, its description and history, uses and diseases, particularly the vapors, with their remedy. Being a lecture read at the Royal College of Physicians, London, 1722. To which is added some anatomical observations in the dissection of an elephant / [William Stukeley].

  • William Stukeley
Date:
1723
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Of the spleen, its description and history, uses and diseases, particularly the vapors, with their remedy. Being a lecture read at the Royal College of Physicians, London, 1722. To which is added some anatomical observations in the dissection of an elephant / [William Stukeley]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Figure. cena or fea-calf there are four or five globular bodies, red, hardllh, infub- fiance like the fpleen but of different bulks, the larger'about the fize of a bean orchefnut, fo that they feem fo many fpleens. The' fplOeri* it felf is compos’d, as it were, of many like globules clap’d together. Ariftotle hift. animal, ii. iy. writes, “ The fpleen is 'generally in all creatures which- tc have blood, but in many of thole which are oviparous it’s very finally as1 “ in moil: birds, particularly pidgeons, kites, hawks, owls. The Capri- “ ceps bird wants it intirely, lay fome. Bournigius de Sangw. 13. R. Morans “ de conf. valetud. p. 693. Entii apolog. p. 60. The fame is faid of oviparous “ quadrupeds, as the tortoife, watermoufe, evit, lizard, crocodile, frog. But I fufpect the truth thereof; or perhaps we may fay with IVotton- de dijf. animal, fed exigmis admodum lien veluti not a gratia habetur. ‘Pliny takes notice of this, xi. 37. Hift. Nat. Vipers have fcaree any, tho’ an eel has a confierable one. It’s faid infers have none, contrary to the proverb habet & mufca fplenem. Anonym. Grac. 7. Gamerar. Cent. vi. obft 37. Thar the chameleon has none is affirmed by many, <rDemocritus, Ariftotle, ‘Pliny, Solinus, Geftier and Aldrovand. Panarolus, and the royal' academy at Par¬ ris. In human, it’s very feldom wholly deficient, as Laurentius fays in the difletfion of a young man, who had no proper fpleen,. but the fplenic veffels were very large, and terminated in a kind of glandular body, whence two large hemorrhoidal veins. Anat. vi. qua ft. 25. Skenkius obferved the like in the famous Matthias Ortelius a citizen of Antwerp, obf. med. iii. but Morgagni anatom, adverfar. iii. p. 36. queffions whether he was not mifta- ken, and that it lay hid under that flelhy fubftanee which he fays cover’d the intefiines. Cafpar Bauhin too mentions the fame In append, ad Ron- fetum de partu Cafareo. Valfalva has obferved it wanting, Theatr. 'Tom. ii. 391. Arift. T. 1. p. 1124. Hen. ab Here. obf. p. 221. and Hoberius in a wo¬ man at Paris, Hemorb. intern, p. 784.1. 66. ad calcem. Kerkringius obf.xi. p. 31. which are all the inltances I have met with, and fuppofe it to have been only wafted away and difappear’d, as happens fometimes in difeafes, of which we fttall have cafes hereafter in proper place. Sect. III. 3. Its figure is exceeding various, beyond that of any other part of the body, which gives us a hint that it has no eftentia] rela¬ tion to its ufe. Sometime it’s triangular, fometime fquare, round, globu¬ lar, pointed, divided in the middle, or into lobules, &c. In phil. tranf numb. 5-8. p. 1188. there is an extraordinary fpleen, large, and of the fi¬ gure of a law. Highmor and Horftius Junius have noted it divided into lobes, the former gives us a cutt of a monftrous one. Rhodius has feen one round, Bartholin divided into five lobes like the kidneys of calves. Its bulk both natural and difeas’d is various, as Ariftotle and Galen teach us. ’Tis generally about fix fingers bredth long, three fingers bredth thick, and of the bredth of the hand: of the figure of a neat’s tongue, or foie of the foot, thence call’d fometime linguofum viftcus. Hippocrates l. de anatom, compares it with the human foot. Rujf. Ephef. Hence the plaifters of that form or pledgits are call’d Splenia by Diofcorides, Pliny, Martial, Pollux and Hefychius. Feftus. Andr. Lacuna in Epift. Gal. firft by Hippo¬ crates as Galen witneffes. Likewife a piece of linnen ty’d upon the up- - per part of the head or forehead clothes, bears the fame, name, and are obferved in antient Greek bulls as marks of deification. The fide next the ribs is convex, the other concave, where the veffels enter, and where it’s join’d to the omentum. In the Galens piftcis mas fays Charlton Man- tijfa