506 



THE LIVER 



[CH. XXXIII. 



animals are killed an hour and a half afterwards, and the blood-vessels 

 washed free from blood, or injected with gelatin stained with carmine. 

 The bile-ducts are then seen filled with blue, and the blood-vessels 



FIG. 407. Hepatic cells and bile capillaries, from the liver of a child three months old. Both figures 

 represent fragments of a section carried through the periphery of a lobule. The red corpuscles of 

 the blood are recognised by their circular contour ; vp, corresponds to an interlobular vein in 

 immediate proximity with which are the epithelial cells of the biliary ducts, to which, at the lower 

 part of the figures, the much larger hepatic cells suddenly succeed. (B. Hering.) 



with red material. If the animals are killed sooner than this, the 

 pigment is found within the hepatic cells, thus demonstrating it was 

 through their agency that the canals were filled. 



Pfliiger and Kupffer have since this shown that the relation 



Fio. 408. Sketches illustrating the mode of commencement of the bile-canaliculi within the liver- 

 cells (Heidenhain, after Kupffer). A, rabbit's liver, injected from hepatic duct with Berlin blue. 

 The intercellular canaliculi give off minute twigs which penetrate into the liver-cells, and there 

 terminate in vacuole-like enlargements. B, frog's liver naturally injected with sulph-indigotate of 

 soda. A similar appearance is obtained, but the communicating twigs are ramified. 



between the hepatic cells and the bile-canaliculi is even more 

 intimate, for they have demonstrated the existence of vacuoles in the 

 cells communicating by minute intracellular channels with the adjoin- 

 ing bile-canaliculi (fig. 408). It is important to notice that the 



