CHAP. XXXIII.] 



LOBULES OF THE LIVER. 



463 



bases of the lobules adhere to these veins, and when they are cut 

 across they do not collapse. The hepatic veins occupying these 

 canals, throughout the organ, receive the blood of the portal vein 

 after it has traversed the plexus of capillaries which envelopes the 

 series of biliary-cells. This plexus of capillaries we therefore term 

 the portal-hepatic plexus. It is a plexus containing venous blood, 

 from which the bile- cells derive the materials which they secrete. 

 The space which the blood passes over in traversing this plexus, 

 in contiguity to the cells, is measured by the [distance between the 

 ramified portal surface and the ramified hepatic venous surface of 

 the liver. The series of bile cells discharge the bile into the biliary 

 ducts on the portal side of the plexus, i.e., where the blood is enter- 

 ing it, and their most remote parts commence on the hepatic venous 



Fig. 217. 





Human liver in which the portal vein (rf) had been injected white, the artery (<?) red, and the hepatic 

 vein (c) lake; from the surface. Magnified 15 diameters. The capillary plexus is only shown in a few 

 places, a. Portion of portal hepatic plexus, b. Portal hepatic plexus receiving at its portal surface small 

 branches from the artery, c. Branches of the hepatic vein, interdigitatiug with the portal canals. 

 d. Branches of tht portal vein. e. One of the branches of the artery; some of its branches are seen 

 ramifying upon the toats of the portal vein, and a few join the capillary plexus 6. Dr. Beale, 



