PHYSIOLOGICAL ANATOMY OF THE LIYEE. 233 



to state that it is situated just below the diaphragm, in the 

 right hypochondriac region, and is the largest gland in the 

 body, weighing, when moderately filled with blood, about 

 four and a half pounds. Its weight is somewhat variable, 

 but it is stated by Sappey that in a person of ordinary adi- 

 pose development, its proportion to the weight of the body 

 is about one to thirty. 1 In early life, the liver is relatively 

 larger, its proportion to the weight of the body, in' the new- 

 born child, being as one to eighteen or twenty. 2 



The liver is covered externally by peritoneum, folds or 

 duplicatures of this membrane being formed as it passes from 

 the surface of the liver to the adjacent parts. These consti- 

 tute four of the so-called ligaments that hold the liver in place. 

 The proper coat of the liver is a very thin, but dense and resist- 

 ing fibrous membrane, adherent to the substance of the organ, 

 but detached without much difficulty, and very closely united 

 to the peritoneum. This membrane is of variable thickness 

 at different parts of the liver, being especially thin in the 

 groove for the vena cava. At the transverse fissure it sur- 

 rounds the duct, blood-vessels, and nerves, and penetrates 

 the substance of the organ in the form of a vagina, or sheath, 

 surrounding the vessels and branching with them. This 

 membrane, as it ramifies in the substance of the liver, is 

 called the capsule of Glisson. It will be more fully described 

 in connection with the arrangement of the hepatic vessels. 



The substance of the liver is made up of innumerable 

 lobules, of an irregularly ovid or rounded form, and about 

 ^5- of an inch in diameter. The space which separates these 



1 SAPPEY, Traite cFanatomie descriptive, Paris, 1857, tome ii., p. 261. Sappey 

 made a number of examinations of the weight of the normal liver, with the ves- 

 sels moderately distended with water, in order to represent, in a measure, its 

 physiological condition. He estimated the weight from the average of ten liv- 

 ers, taken from both sexes and at different ages after adult life, at two kil., or 

 about four and a half pounds. The weight of the liver with the vessels empty 

 is about three and one-third pounds. 



2 WILSON, Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, London, 1839-47, vol. iii., 

 p. 178, Article, Liver. 



