24:2 EXCRETION. 



was not satisfactorily demonstrated. Kolliker formerly ac- 

 cepted in part the views advanced by Beale ; but his ideas 

 upon this subject, in all but the last edition of his work, 

 have not been very definite. 1 



Such is the condition of the question of the origin of the 

 biliary ducts, as it is understood by most English and Amer- 

 ican authors; and although the above statement does not 

 represent all the views entertained by different anatomists, 

 it is sufficient to show the exceedingly indefinite condition 

 of the whole subject. Kolliker, indeed, in a letter to Dr. 

 Sharpey, of London (1867), and in the last edition of his 

 work on histology, abandons his former views, and states 

 that he has become fully convinced of the accuracy of recent 

 observations which lead to an entirely new description 

 of the bile-ducts ; a and Prof. Leidy, in his work on anat- 

 omy, published in 1861, does not commit himself to any 

 definite opinion on the subject. 3 Late researches have 

 shown that the following is probably the true relation of 

 the ultimate ramifications of the bile-ducts in the lobules to 

 the hepatic cells : 



In the substance of the lobules is an exceedingly fine 

 and regular net- work of vessels, of uniform size, about 10 } 00 

 of an inch in diameter, 4 which surround the liver-cells, each 

 cell lying in a space bounded by inosculating branches of 

 these canals. This plexus is entirely independent of the 



1 KOLLIKER, Manual of Human Microscopic Anatomy, London, 1860, p. 

 346. 



2 Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, Cambridge and London, 1868, vol. 

 ii., p. 163. These views have been adopted by Kolliker in the last edition of 

 his work on Microscopic Anatomy (Handbuch der Gewcbelehre, Leipzig, 1867, S. 

 428). 



3 LEIDY, An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy, Philadelphia, 1861, 

 p. 327. 



4 This is the result of the measurements by Dr. Stiles (Bulletin of tJie New 

 York Academy of Medicine, 1868, vol. iii., p. 351), of the ducts in the livers of 

 the bullocks that died of the " Texas disease," which we have verified in the 

 same specimen. The measurements given by Frey are about the same (Hand- 

 buch der Histoloaic, Leipzig, 1867, a 558). 



