Students at Harvard Medical School study body parts, among other things. Some of those students produced this video about the question “What does the spleen do?“:
The makers supply this info: A Parody of “The Fox” by Ylvis. This video was created for the 107th Annual Second Year Show by the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HMS/HSDM) class of 2016. Written by Will Lewis, Lydia Flier, Eddie Grom, and Ariana Metchik-Gaddis. Directed by Eddie Grom, Lydia Flier, and Ben Rome. Sound Production by Will Lewis. Filmed and Edited by Ben Rome. Choreography by Richard Ngo. Costumes by Lenka Ilcisin & Emily Simons. The cast: Singer 1: Will Lewis / Singer 2: Dan Brein / Surgeon: Ben Brush / Spleen: Richard Ngo / Patient: Molly Siegel / Students: Eddie Grom & Ariana Metchik-Gaddis / Dancers: Madelyn Ho, Jean Junior, Erica Kiemele, Snowy Liu, Alex Power-Hays, Kai Qiu, Margaret Soroka, Susan Wang, Leah Wibecan. (Thanks to investigator Diane Rippa for bringing this to our attention.)
A drawing, from Cunningham’s Textbook of Anatomy (1818), of the spleen:
BONUS: Wikipedia’s exploration, sans music and dancing, of the body part
BONUS: What Fox Chase Cancer Center says about the spleen
BONUS: A poem, ” The Spleen“, by Anne Kingsmill Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661 – 1720).
BONUS: “Histomorphology of the Spleen in the Fox (Vulpes bengalensis)”
BONUS (unrelated): What Spleen says about the bee