=The Pancreas.=--Another accessory organ of digestion is the pancreas, the _abdominal salivary gland_, as it is sometimes called on account of its close resemblance to the parotid gland. This is a grayish-white racemose gland, six and a half inches long by one and a half inches wide and one inch thick, lying behind the stomach on a level with the first and second lumbar vertebræ and shaped like a pistol with its handle toward the right. In an emaciated person it can be felt. The _pancreatic duct_ runs the whole length of the gland from left to right and conveys the _pancreatic juice_ from various little glands in the substance of the organ to the duodenum, into which it empties along with the common bile duct by a common orifice. The _arteries_ are from the celiac axis and superior mesenteric, the _veins_ belong to the portal system, and the _nerves_ come from the solar plexus. Surgically the pancreas is of no special importance, though _acute pancreatitis_ does occasionally occur and is a very serious condition and one hard to diagnose. =The Spleen.=--The largest and most important of the ductless glands is the spleen, an oblong, flattened organ lying deep in the left hypochondriac region between the stomach and diaphragm above the descending colon, and corresponding to the ninth, tenth, and eleventh ribs. It is soft, brittle, and very vascular. Its _artery_ is a branch of the celiac axis and the _vein_ belongs to the portal system. Its _nerves_ are the pneumogastric and branches from the solar plexus. The _function_ is not well understood but probably it is connected with or related to the vascular system in some way. Perhaps it manufactures blood corpuscles. The spleen varies more in size than any other organ. Normally it cannot be felt, but in typhoid it usually can. It is generally atrophied in old age and hypertrophied in almost all acute infectious diseases, especially in typhoid fever and malaria. In leukemia it is often greatly enlarged. Sometimes in violent falls it is _ruptured_ and there is considerable hemorrhage. =The Suprarenal Capsules.=--The other ductless glands, the suprarenal capsules, yellowish triangular bodies, are situated just above and in front of the kidneys. Their function is important but not well understood. Death, accompanied by great muscular weakness, follows the removal of both, and when they are diseased, similar weakness is observed and the skin becomes bronzed. Injection of the extract of the suprarenals stimulates the muscular system. So probably they secrete into the blood minute quantities of a substance or substances beneficial to the body, especially to the muscular system. [Illustration: FIG. 58.--Diagram of the relation of kidney to viscera, spine, and surface points. (American Text-Book of Surgery.)]