THE URINARY ORGANS. 



205 



to extend further than the vasa interlobular ia. In the hilus, 

 they unite into a few small trunks, which also receive lymphatic 

 vessels from the pelvis of the kidney and then open into the 

 lumbar glands. Superficial lymphatics, which have been 

 described by the older anatomists (Nuck, Cruikshank, Mascagni, 

 &c), I have as yet not seen, except in the capsula adiposa, 

 but I am unwilling positively to deny their existence. 



The renal nerves, from the cseliac plexus of the sympathetic 

 are tolerably numerous, form a plexus around the arteries, 

 continue to present a few ganglia in the hilus and may be traced, 

 in company with the vessels, as far as the interlobular arteries. 

 Where and how they terminate is unknown. 1 



All these vessels and nerves are supported by a connective 

 tissue, which, at the same time, 



serves as a stroma for the se- 

 creting elements and is much 

 more developed in the medul- 

 lary substance than in the cor- 

 tical. At the surface of the 

 gland, it is condensed into a 

 membrane, often very distinct, 

 001 — 002'" thick, which is 

 but loosely connected with the 

 fibrous tunic, partly supports 

 the superficial capillary plexus, 

 and is continuous with the in- 

 ternal stroma by numerous 

 delicate processes. 



Fig. 250. 



[In inflammations and exudations, the stroma is frequently so 



Fig. 250. Transverse section through some straight cortical tubules, x 350 diam.; 

 from Man : a, transverse section of tubuli uriniferi, the membrana propria only of 

 which remains ; b, similar tubules, with the epithelium still remaining ; c, stroma of 

 connective tissue, with elongated nuclei ; d, cavity in which a Malpighian corpuscle 

 was contained. 



1 [With respect to the termination of the nerves in the kidney, Mr. Toynbee (1. c, 

 p. 805) makes the remarkable and very important observation that " the filaments 

 end by becoming continuous with the parenchyma of the organ, precisely in the same 

 way," he goes on to say, " as he has observed those in the tail of a Tadpole to 

 become directly continuous with the radiating fibres of stellated corpuscles, and the 

 filaments from the corpuscles to communicate with each other." — Eds.] 



