Franklin P. Mall _. 295 
thermore the injected mass may pass from the pericapillary spaces di- 
rectly into the capillaries, thus accounting for their frequent injection. 
According to Fleischl,” all the bile is taken up by the lymphatics after 
ligature of the bile duct, and in case the thoracic duct is also ligated no 
bile or only a trace of bile ever reaches the blood. The observation of 
Fleisch] has been confirmed by Kunkel,” Kufferath “ and Harley.” It is 
extremely difficult to understand why the bile does not enter the blood 
capillaries in case it passes from the bile capillaries over into the peri- 
vascular spaces before it reaches the interlobular spaces after ligature of 
the bile duct. A further objection to the idea that the perivascular 
spaces first take up the bile, after ligature of the duct, is the fact that 
fluids injected into the bile duct pass with ease over into the lymphatics 
but only with difficulty into the bile capillaries. In all cases it appears 
as if the main origin of the lymphatics is at the center of the portal unit 
and that the radicals communicate freely with the perivascular lymph 
spaces. Furthermore, it appears that the course the bile takes after liga- 
ture of the bile duct, or of a fluid injected into the bile duct in passing 
to the lymphatics, is well within the center of the portal unit and not 
within the lobule. This idea is greatly strengthened since we know that 
the walls of the capillaries of the lobule are extremely porous, being com- 
posed of a dense basketlike layer of reticulum fibrils “ upon which lie the 
endothelial or Kupffer’s syncytial cells. This layer of reticulum fibrils 
encircling each capillary has been isolated by Oppel “ and by myself “ and 
is sufficiently described above. The capillary walls then are very pervious, 
blood plasma passing easily from them out into the perivascular spaces to 
bathe the liver cells. 
It is well known that a large quantity of lymph is constantly passing 
from the liver, much more than from any other organ. That this lymph 
comes directly from the blood is indicated by its high per cent of pro- 
teid matter, nearly equal to that of the blood, and from two to three times 
that of the lymph from other parts of the body. 
The course the lymph takes from the blood capillaries to the lymph 
radicals, 7. e., its natural course, can easily be marked by injecting colored 
1 Fleischl, Ludwig’s Arbeiten, 1874. 
“Kunkel, Ludwig’s Arbeiten, 1875. 
“ Kufferath, Arch. fiir Physiol., 1880. 
“Harley, Archiv ftir Physiol., 1893. 
*® Kupffer, Arch. f. Mik. Anat., 54. 
Oppel, Arch. Anz., 1890. 
47 Mall, Abhandl. d. K. S. Ges. d. Wiss., XVII, 1891. See also Johns Hopkins 
Hospital Bulletin, XII, 1901. 
