Volume 2

Treatises on physiology and phrenology : from the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica / by P.M. Roget.

  • Peter Mark Roget
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatises on physiology and phrenology : from the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica / by P.M. Roget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    24/408 page 14
    This is the case with those bodies belonging to the absor- bent system, which bear improperly the title of lymphatic or conglobate glands. The spleen, the renal capsules, the pineal gland, the thyroid gland, and the thymus, are, in like manner, improperly included in the class of glands ; for we liave no evidence of their secreting any fluid, and indeed know nothing of their real functions. (496.) The catalogue of glands, strictly answering to the definition, will comprise the following organs, namely, the liver, pancreas, and kidneys; the salivary, lacrymal, and meibomian glands ; the tonsils, the ceruminous glands of the ear, and the sebaceous glands of the face; the mammae, the prostate, the testicle, Cowper's glands, the glandulae odoriferse, and the extensive system of mucous glands about the head and trunk. These parts, although differing widely from each other in many respects, agree in a sufficient number of particulars to allow of being class- ed together in one organic system, which Bichat has term- ed the glandular system, (497.) Most of the glands are arranged in pairs, as the kidneys, testicles, salivary and lacrymal glands, while others are single, as the liver and the pancreas. (498.) The organization of the glandular system is ex- ceedingly complex, and cannot be unravelled without great difficulty. The tissue of which they are composed presents us with no regular arrangement of fibres, such as we see in the muscles, ligaments, nerves, or bones; but the whole structure is made up of a congeries of vessels and cells, having no very firm cohesion amongst themselves, and hence admitting very readily of being separated by slight mecha- nical causes. Whilst organs which have a more extensive fibrous organization possess considerable powers of resist-
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