It appears to me, that they depend especially upon the state of the liver, the capillary vessels of which, are the continuations of all the branches of the vena portæ as the capillaries of the lungs are those of the great venous system. Thus, when the hepatic capillaries from any cause whatever are enfeebled, the spleen must swell and be filled with the blood, which cannot traverse the liver.[90] In such case, if I may so express myself, there is an isolated asphyxia of the abdominal vascular apparatus. The liver being to the spleen, what the lungs are to the black-blooded cavities in common asphyxia. The resistance is in the former, the stagnation in the latter. But this matter may be better understood hereafter. Experiments upon animals killed in different ways, would throw much light upon it, and these I purpose undertaking. By these means we may rigorously establish the analogy existing between the stagnation of the blood in the different branches of the vena portæ, and that which is observed in the general venous system, in consequence of various kinds of death. With respect to the spleen and its system of veins, in ordinary asphyxia, I have never remarked in it any peculiarity. FOOTNOTES: [79] It is not because the vessels of the lungs have become tortuous that the blood flows through them with difficulty, but because they are compressed. It was needless for Goodwyn to seek for reasons to prove, that the flattening of the lungs does not offer a mechanical obstacle to the course of the blood. If he had observed with attention the phenomena of respiration, he would have seen that this contraction, if it does not completely interrupt the circulation of the blood in the lungs, at least modifies it in a very remarkable manner. When the lungs contract, not only the bronchial cells are flattened, but the pulmonary vessels are compressed, and tend to expel the blood contained in their cavity. This fluid flows back then on one part towards the right ventricle by the pulmonary artery, and on the other it accumulates in the pulmonary veins before entering the left auricle. Hence we see that the jet by the carotid artery must increase rather than lessen in the last moments. But if the compression continues, as the capacity of the ramifications of the pulmonary artery is diminished as well as that of the veins of the same name, the quantity of blood which passes through the lungs is less, and the jet by the carotid necessarily decreases. The experiment related by Bichat is then entirely opposed to the opinion which he advances.