344 DISSECTION OF THE RABBIT. 



ducts from the several lobes of the liver, and 

 lies in the mesentery immediately to the right 

 of the large portal vein. 



Open the duodenum opposite the opening of the bile-duct ; 

 wash out its contents, and find the aperture of the duct on a 

 small papilla. The bile-duct is most easily traced from the 

 duodenum forwards, and may with advantage be first injected 

 from a point about half an inch from the duodenum. 



Unravel the coils of the intestine, freeing them from each 

 other by cutting through the mesentery along its line of attach- 

 ment to the intestine. Leave the duodenal loop and the rectum, 

 with their mesenteries, untouched. Carefully avoid injuring or 

 removing the cceliac and mesenteric ganglia and the associated 

 nerves (see p. 347). 



Lay out the intestine on the dissecting -board, so as to show 

 the relations and proportions of its several parts. Avoid all 

 unnecessary injury to the blood-vessels, and ligature any that 

 bleed. 



5. The small intestine, which is directly continuous with 



the duodenum, is about seven or eight feet in 

 length, and of uniform diameter throughout. 



a. Peyer's patches are slightly thickened oval spots, 



granular in appearance, and about a third of an 

 inch in diameter, which occur at intervals along 

 the whole length of the small intestine, on the 

 side opposite to the attachment of the mesentery. 



b. The sacculus rotundus is the dilated distal end of 



the' small intestine, opening into the side of the 

 caecum about an inch from its proximal ends. 

 Its walls have the structure of Peyer's patches. 



6. The caecum and vermiform appendix. 



The caecum is a large thin-walled diverticulum 

 of the alimentary canal, at the junction of the small 

 intestine and colon. It is about twenty inches long 

 and an inch or more in diameter, and is marked 

 externally by a spiral constriction which runs 



