454 



and will continue to be so until the many important principles which 

 it involves, but which have not been introduced into the present 

 discussion, have been further elucidated by new investigations and 

 new thoughts. 



X. " On the ultimate arrangement of the Biliary Ducts, and on 

 some other points in the Anatomy of the Liver of Verte- 

 brate Animals/** By LIONEL S. BEALE, M.B., Professor of 

 Physiology and Morbid Anatomy in King's College, Lon- 

 don. Communicated by F. KIERNAN, Esq., F.R.S. Re- 

 ceived June 14, 1855. 



In his valuable communication to the Royal Society in 1833, 

 Mr. Kiernan describes and figures anastomoses between branches 

 of the biliary ducts in the left triangular ligament of the human 

 liver. The same author considered that the interlobular ducts ana- 

 stomosed with each other, and communicated with a lobular biliary 

 plexus, although he had never succeeded in injecting this plexus to 

 the extent shown in his figure, neither had he directly observed the 

 anastomoses between interlobular ducts. It must be borne in mind 

 that these observations were made before the liver-cells had been 

 described. 



Since the appearance of Mr. Kiernan's paper, various hypothetical 

 views have been advanced by different observers, with reference to 

 the arrangement of the minute biliary ducts and the relation which 

 the liver-cells bear to them. These points, however, have not yet 

 been decided by actual observation. 



Muller considered that the ducts terminated in blind extremities. 

 Weber showed that the right and left hepatic ducts anastomosed by 

 the intervention of branches in the transverse fissure of the liver, 

 which he described under the name of Vasa aberrantia. 



Krukenberg, Schroder Van der Kolk, Retzius, Theile, Backer, 

 Leidy and others have adopted the view that the liver- cells lie within 

 a network of basement membrane. On the other hand, Handfield 

 Jones and Kolliker describe the liver-cells as forming a solid net- 



