

THE LIVER SECRETION OF BILE. 479 



Blood which the liver receives. How far the blood supplied by the Hepatic 

 Artery is the immediate source of the secretion has not been quite satisfac- 

 torily determined. Kottmeier 1 and Kiithe'' found that no bile was secreted 



FIG. 174. 



Spectrum of Pettenkofer's test with the biliary salts in alcoholic solution. 



after ligature of this vessel, and they attribute the result to an alteration 

 taking place in the nutrition of the cells destined to form the bile. Schiff, 

 however, was unable to detect any diminution in a large dog upon which he 

 had performed the same operation, and Rohrig 3 found the secretion was only 

 slightly lessened. It is certain that the Hepatic artery may indirectly fur- 

 nish the supply of blood necessary for the secretion; for although, if the 

 Vena Portte be suddenly tied, the flow of bile is immediately stopped, and 

 death ensues in the course of a few hours; yet if the obliteration be slowly 

 effected, either by the gradual tightening of a ligature, 4 or, as occasionally 

 happens, from disease, the secretion of bile still continues, though in dimin- 

 ished quantity. In such instances it probably proceeds from the blood of 

 the hepatic artery, the capillaries of which discharge themselves into the 

 lobular plexus of veins, and in cases of malformation have been actually ob- 

 served to pass into the ramifications of the umbilical vein, forming a plexus 

 in the lobules that exactly resembled the ordinary portal plexus. 5 Its secre- 

 tion after such slow obliteration of the Vena Portse may also sometimes be 

 due to the presence and enlargement of the accessory Vense Ports;, which 

 have been noticed by Sappey. 6 According to Bernard, 7 the engorgement 

 of the Vense Portse consequent upon its slow obliteration, is relieved by the 

 presence of small anastomotic branches with the Renal Vein corresponding 

 to the Venous system of Jacobson found in the lower Vertebrate classes. 8 

 The fact that the secretion of Bile is normally formed, in great part at 

 least, from venous blood, has been commonly connected with the hydrocar- 

 bonaceous nature of its chief components, which must exist (it is considered) 

 in larger proportion in such blood than in that of the arteries. But it must 

 be borne in mind, that the urinary excretion, which is undoubtedly formed at 

 the expense of the products of the disintegration of the tissues, is secreted 

 from arterial blood ; and since the bile is, as it were, the complement of the 

 urine (the ultimate components of the two together making up the composi- 



1 Zur Kenntniss der Leber, Wurzburg, 1857. 



2 Ktudien des Physiolog. Institut zu Amsterdam, 1861. 

 8 Rohrig, Strieker's Jahrbucher, 1873, p. 243. 



4 Ore, (Jomptes Rendus, 1856, p. 463. 



6 Sucb, at least, was found to be the case in the only instance in which the Liver 

 was examined with sufficient care. See Kiernan, loc. cit. 



6 Guz. Med., 1859, p. 489. 



7 Lt^ons sur les Liquides de 1'Organisme, 1859, vol. ii, p. 195. 



8 For other anastomotic branches, see Schifl' in Schweiz. Zeits. f. Heilkunde. Bd. i. 

 1862. 



