PORTAL VEIS. 



241 



Hepatic Artery. The hepatic artery is a branch of the 

 celiac axis, and enters the liver at the transverse fissure, dividing 

 here into two branches, right and left, which go to the correspond- 

 ing lobes. This artery furnishes nutrition to the coats of the large 

 blood-vessels, the ducts, the membranes of the liver, and to Glis- 

 son's capsule. It also gives off branches, inierlobular branches, 

 which pass between the lobules and give off lobular branches. 

 These enter the lobules and end in a capillary network between 

 the cells. Whether, however, any blood is carried by these 

 vessels directly to the network is in dispute. 



Portal Vein. This vessel also enters the liver at the trans- 

 verse fissure, dividing into two, each branch going to the corre- 

 sponding lobe, and following the course already described as being 

 taken by the hepatic artery and its branches. The termination 



Portal in- 



terlobular 

 branch, 

 cut longi- 

 tudinally. 



Anasto- 

 moses be- 

 tween ves- 

 sels of 



FIG. 135. Section through injected liver of rabbit. The boundaries of the lobules 

 are indistinct ; x about 35 (Bohm and David off). 



of the portal vein forms the interlobular plexus, which, as its name 

 implies, is in the connective tissue, between the lobules. From 

 this go off vessels which run to the center of the lobule, being 

 connected by transverse vessels, the whole forming a capillary 

 network, in the meshes of which are the hepatic cells. The blood 

 which passes through this network is discharged at the center 

 of the lobule into the intralobular or central vein, which, at the 

 base of the lobule, enters the sublobular vein. In a similar 



16 



