Elliot mentions a spleen weighing 11 pounds; Burrows one, 11 pounds; Blasius, four pounds; Osiander, nine pounds; Blanchard, 31 pounds; Richardson, 3 1/2 pounds; and Hare, 93 ounces.
The thoracic duct, although so much protected by its anatomical position, under exceptional circumstances has been ruptured or wounded.
Kirchner has collected 17 cases of this nature, two of which were due to contusions of the chest, one each to a puncture, a cut, and a shot-wound, and three to erosion from suppuration.

In the remaining cases the account fails to assign a definite cause.

Chylothorax, or chylous ascites, is generally a result of this injury.

Krabbel mentions a patient who was run over by an empty coal car, and who died on the fifth day from suffocation due to an effusion into the right pleural cavity.

On postmortem examination it was found that the effusion was chyle, the thoracic duct being torn just opposite the 9th dorsal vertebra, which had been transversely fractured.