Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/292

 280 SPLEEN irin It ia not improbable that it may hare come from a cross between some of the small- er arctic wolf-like dogs and the arctic fox. SPLEEN (Gr. a^.f,v the largest of the vas- cular or ductless glands, whose probable func- tion is subsidiary to the process of sanguifica- tion. It is situated in the left hypochondriac region, below the diaphragm, above the de- scending colon, between the cartilages of the false ribs and the cardiac extremity of the stomach, to which it is united by short ves- sels. It is in health from 4 to 5 in. long, and in. thick, of an elongated flattened form, and about 6 oz. in weight; on the inner sur- face is a longitudinal groove in which are the blood vessels, posteriorly resting on the verte- bral column ; below, it is in relation with the left kidney and capsule, and with the pancreas behind. It is soft and spongy, and dusky red. A portion of the Splenic Artery, Its ramifications being tudded with Malpighian corpuscles (from the dog). (Magnified 10 diameters.) Its external surface is covered with the peri- toneum ; beneath this is a coat of white fibrous tissue with some clastic fibres, from the inner surface of which extends through the entire organ a network of fibrous bands and threads, the trabecular tissue. The splenic artery comes from the coeliac axis, the trunks not anasto- mosing, but subdividing like the branches of a tree, to which the Malpighian corpuscles are attached as fruits on short peduncles, and end ing generally in capillaries with very thin walls, passing in every direction through the organ and into the interior of the corpuscles. The veins are branched like the arteries, have no valves, and their principal stem is one of the trunks of the vena portoo; the nerves form the splenic plexus, and proceed from the solar plexus of the great sympathetic ; the lymphat- ics are few and superficial. The parenchyma consists of a homogeneous mass of colorless SPOHR nucleated corpuscles and cells imbedded in a granular plasma. The splenic corpuscles, or Malpighian bodies of the spleen, are whitish spherical bodies, about T V of an inch in diame- ter, attached to the smaller ramifications of the splenic artery. Each corpuscle consists of a closed sac or capsule, containing in its inte- rior a viscid semi-solid mass of cells, cell nu- clei, and homogeneous substance. Each Mal- pighian body is covered with a network of ca- pillary blood vessels ; and small blood vessels also penetrate into its interior, through the in- vesting capsule, and form a vascular capillary plexus in the substance of the body itself. The precise details of the function of the spleen are unknown. It belongs to the class of "duct- less glands," that is, of organs having a glan- dular texture but no outlet or duct, and not supplying any distinct secretion like those of the glands proper. Their purpose undoubted- ly is to effect some necessary change in the blood itself, producing in their glandular tis- sue some substance which is appropriated and carried away by the blood vessels distributed to them. Thus the veins of these organs are supposed to serve as their excretory ducts. The spleen, though so large, is not directly essential to life, and has been several times removed in the lower animals without an immediately fatal result. It is liable to acute and chronic enlargements in various forms of typhoid and intermittent fevers, and is some- times excessively enlarged and solidified in the strumous diseases of infancy and childhood. SPOFFORD, Harriet Elizabeth (PRESCOTT), an American authoress, born in Calais, Me., April 3, 1835. She was educated at Newburyport, Mass., and in 1865 married Richard S. Spofford of that place. She has published " Sir Rohan's Ghost " (1859) ; " The Amber Gods, and Other Stories " (1863) ; " Azarian, an Episode " (1864) ; "New England Legends" (1871); and "The Thief in the Night" (1872). SPOHR, Lndwijr, a German composer, born in Brunswick, April 5, 1784, died in Cassel, Oct. 22, 1859. He received instruction on the violin from Maucourt, and made his debut at Brunswick at the age of 12, playing then a concerto of his own composition. At 18 he accompanied the violinist Eck to Russia. At 19 he composed the work since published as his first violin concerto (Opus 1). At 21 he made a tour through Germany, bringing out at one of his concerts the since celebrated com- poser Meyerbeer. In 1805 he was appointed chapelmaster at Gotha. In 1806 he married Dorothea Scheidler the harpist, and afterward composed many pieces for the harp in connec- tion with the violin. In 1816 he visited Italy on a concert tour, and in 1817 he undertook the directorship of the Frankfort theatre. In 1820 he visited England, and conducted there the philharmonic society's concerts. In 1821 he was appointed chapelmaster at Cassel, where he resided during the remainder of his life. He brought out there his operas Der Berggei&t,