Has de humoribus theses

33. Even though these points do not stray from the truth, we nevertheless, for the sake of discussion and the pursuit of truth, establish with certain most learned men another, far more noble function for the spleen. Namely, that it aids the liver in the composition of blood, and acts as a sort of secondary workshop for blood-making.

34. Hence, Aristotle called the spleen a nothon hepar spurious/bastard liver and, as it were, a antizygon counterbalance to the liver. Plato, as Galen himself testifies, called it the hepar epitheion additional liver. The author of the book on respiration likely a reference to the Aristotelian corpus or Hippocratic writings commonly cited in medical history also tacitly signifies that the spleen is an organ of blood-making. It appeared to Vesalius that even the divine Hippocrates almost subscribed to this opinion. Therefore, this is not a new function of the spleen, but the most ancient of all.

35. Many reasons are brought forward for this assertion, among which autopsia direct observation/personal inspection easily holds the primary place. For there is no cavity in the spleen, which nevertheless ought to be all the more ample, the thicker this excrement is compared to bile.

36. Furthermore, the splenic branch, arising from the trunk of the portal vein, arrives at the spleen long before it reaches the liver, and there, divided into various shoots, is dispersed throughout the entire body of the spleen.

37. Also, no duct is seen leading from the spleen into the stomach that is choledochois analogon analogous to the bile duct, through which that excrement might be transported. Indeed, those vessels which are arranged from the parts approaching the spleen into the stomach, and which stubbornly bind the spleen to the stomach, do not differ in any way from others running into the stomach, neither in the form of their distribution, nor in color, nor in the appearance of their implantation.

38. The observations of physicians also contribute to this, who in many dissected cadavers of humans, and even of other animals, have noticed the spleen to be very red and like a most healthy liver, and in its mass almost exceeding the liver, when the liver itself...