116 



CHOLINE 



initially non-portal trabeculae in cirrhotic rats eventually assume charac- 

 teristics which are at least pseudoportal? Is it possible that the trabecular 

 distribution of advanced cases of alcoholic cirrhosis is also only pseudo- 

 portal? Is there in fact any essential difference in the histopathology of the 



Fig. 14. Preparation (similar to that shown in Fig. 13), of a rat which had re- 

 ceived a single oral dose of carbon tetrachloride 24 hours before it was sacrificed. 

 Central veins (radicles of the hepatic vein) can be easilj- identified in such a specimen 

 as they are surrounded by partially ischemic zones in which liver cells have swollen 

 as a result of the toxin. A radicle of the hepatic vein occupies the center of the field. 

 The branch of the portal vein below and to the right is a terminal distributing vessel 

 (see text) and is breaking up into sinusoids. The surrounding parenchyma is func- 

 tionally periportal, whereas that illustrated around the conducting branch of the 

 portal vein in Fig. 13 is periportal only in a geographical sense. In livers of both 

 choline-deficient rats and alcoholic man, fibrosis develops around large branches of 

 the portal vein such as that in Fig. 13, but rarelj^ and only in very advanced cases is 

 fibrosis found around these terminal branches illustrated here. X250. 



end stages of the two types of cirrhosis? An attempt to answer these ques- 

 tions will be made by siu'veying the general architecture of the hepatic 

 vasculature and relating it to the pathological anatomy of experimental 

 and alcoholic cirrhosis. 



Large branches of the portal vein, like other large afferent vessels of the 

 l)ody, rarely give off direct branches of sinusoidal or capillary dimensions. 

 Before supplying the bulk of the parenchyma, branches of this vessel, of 



