FUNCTIONS OF THE LIVER. 331 



tents into the bile-capillary through a small tubule connecting 

 the vacuole with the bile-capillary." Kupffer's main vacuole 

 is thought by him to constitute an intracellular vesicle con- 

 nected with the bile-capillaries by means of delicate tubes. 



The nerves of the liver enter the organ at the transverse 

 fissure and accompany the blood-vessels and lymph-vessels to 

 the interlobular spaces. That the sympathetic and the pneu- 

 mogastric supply these nerves and that "minute ganglia occur 

 along the interlobular trunk" represent about all the informa- 

 tion to be gleaned from classical books. Berkley traced several 

 divisions of the intrinsic nerves; "no doubt, the neuraxes of 

 sympathetic neurons," observe Bohm and von Davidoff, who 

 add: "The suggestion seems warranted that these terminal 

 fibrils are the endings of sensory nerves. Some of the nerve- 

 fibers following the bile-ducts may be traced into the hepatic 

 lobules. The intralobular plexus is formed, therefore, by the 

 terminal branches of the non-medullated nerve accompanying 

 the portal and hepatic vessels and the bile-ducts." Pfliiger 

 has contributed interesting complemental evidence, however, 

 which confirms the existence of the pericellular nervous net- 

 work that we have observed in all other glandular structures; 

 indeed, he not only noted the presence of a plexus around the 

 cell, but also ascertained that terminal filaments perforated 

 its protoplasmic peripheral thickening. On the other hand, 

 Nestorowski and Kolatschewski found a terminal plexus around 

 the intralobular capillaries, while Miura, who confirmed the 

 latter observation, also ascertained that this vascular plexus 

 could be traced to the intralobular vessels (Labadie-Lagrave 15 ). 

 This establishes a connection with the extrinsic nerves, down 

 to the transverse fissure referred to at the beginning of this 

 paragraph, and indicates that the liver is innervated, as we 

 found the stomach and pancreas to be, by vagal and sympa- 

 thetic extensions from the coeliac plexus. 



Our inquiry into the character and composition of the 

 substances that are transformed in the liver and of the secre- 

 tions of this organ must necessarily include the blood of the 

 portal vein, since it contains whatever products of metabolism 



16 Labadie-Lagrave: Loc. cit. 



