THE VASCULAR SYSTEM AND BLOOD 

 PRESSURE 



BY LEONARD HILL 



EXPERIMENTAL OPERATIONS ON THE VASCULAR SYSTEM 



CARREL has opened up a new field of experimental work by show- 

 ing that it is possible to join together the divided ends of arteries 

 or veins, or a vein with an artery. Having inserted thread 

 through each end of the divided vessel, at three points in the 

 circumference apart from one another, he brings the ends of the 

 vessel together by these threads and stitches intima to intima 

 with a very fine needle and a running thread. 1 The outer coats 

 are finally stitched together. Then the blood flow being re- 

 established, he watches for the slightest sign of oozing, and if 

 any, stops it by further stitches. 



He has succeeded not only in stitching an artery to a vein, 

 but in inserting a length of transplanted artery or vein between 

 the ends of a divided artery. More wonderful than all, he has 

 succeeded in transplanting whole organs from one animal to another. 

 In one experiment he dissected a length of the carotid of a young 

 dog, kept it in physiological salt solution for twenty days at 32 F., 

 and finally inserted the piece in the course of the abdominal aorta 

 of a cat. 2 On the forty-eighth day after he opened the abdomen 

 and found the artery of normal appearance and serving its func- 

 tion well. On the seventy-seventh day the cat was in perfect 

 condition. 3 



" Seven months ago," he writes, " one of the animals had the 



1 The needles are sixteen cambrics, the threads single strands of Chinese twist 

 silk sterilised in paraffin oil. 



1 John Hunter stated that the arteries have considerable surviving power. On 

 transplanting them he obtained union thirty-six houi-s after their removal from the 

 body. Palmer's Edit., vol. iii. p. 157. 



8 Guthrie not only has repeated this experiment, but has inserted a length of 

 artery hardened in formol ; at the end of twenty-two days it was serving its 

 function perfectly. The dead artery is the scaffold on which repair of the living 



vessel takes place. (Journ. Amer. Med. Assoc., 1908, 1. p. 1035.) 



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