Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/265

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Ancient and Modern Learning.
225

(2.) That the whole Bulk of the Liver consists of these Grape-stone-like Glands, and of divers sorts of Vessels. (3.) That the small Branches of the Cava, Porta, and Porus Bilarius, run through all, even the least of these Lobules, in an equal Number; and that the Branches of the Porta are as Arteries that convey the Blood to, and the Branches of the Cava are the Veins which carry the Blood from all these little Grape-stone-like Glands. From whence it is plain, that the Liver is a Glandulous Body, with its proper Excretory Vessels, which carry away the Gall that lay before in the Mass of the Blood.

Near the Liver lies the Pancreas, which Galen believed (q)(q) De U. P. lib. 5. cap. 2. to be a Pillow to support the Divisions of the Veins, as they go out of the Liver; and, for what appears at present, the Ancients do not seem to have concerned themselves any further about it. Since, it has been found to be a Glandulous Body, wherein a distinct Juice is separated from the Blood; which, by a peculiar Canal, first discovered by Georgius Wirtsungus, a Paduan Physician, is carried into the Duodenum; where meeting with the Bile, and the Aliment just thrown out of the Stomach, assists and promotes the Business of Digestion.

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