Human Spleen

When Shakespeare's Rosalind describes Cupid as "... conceived of spleen and born of madness ..." in his play As You Like It, she was referring to the spleen as an organ of spirit and courage and of such emotions as mirth, ill humor, and melancholy, and not as the filter and rejuvenator of human blood as anatomists know it. The human spleen is a highly vascular, glandular, and ductless organ (or gland to endocrinologists) situated at the cardiac end of the stomach. The important organ creates lymphocytes for the destruction and recycling of senile red-blood corpuscles (age of about 30 days). Similar functions are carried out by the liver. The spleen also acts as a blood reservoir, supplying blood in emergencies such as a bad cut.