876 THE LIVER. 



that, the cells being placed closely together, the bile either passes by irre- 

 gular interstices between them, or from one cell to another, to reach the 

 smallest ducts at the circumference of the lobules. 



Beale, who has investigated the subject with great care, believes that he 

 has succeeded in demonstrating the existence of a basement membrane in- 

 closing, in a plexus of tubes, the intralobular rows or columns of hepatic 

 cells. This basement membrane, he conceives, lines the interstices between 

 the capillary blood-vessels forming the intralobular plexus ; and he states 

 that, although in the adult it becomes so closely incorporated with the walls 

 of the blood-vessels that it is scarcely to be demonstrated as a distinct struc- 

 ture, yet, in the foetus, the walls of these tubes and those of the vessels are 

 quite distinct. The minute ducts are considered by Beale to be directly 

 continuous with this tubular network : but the tubules containing the 

 hepatic cells, being T ^ c tli of an inch in diameter, and the smallest ducts 

 -g-J^th or less, there is a great difference in their size ; this difference, he 

 holds, however, is only similar to that which is found, in some other 

 glandular organs, between the proper secreting cavity and the ductal 



Kolliker has become convinced of the correctness of Beale's account from 

 an examination of his preparations. Heule believes that the iuterlobular 

 bile-ducts are completely shut off from the cellular substance of the lobules, 

 which was the theory proposed by Handfield Jones ; and he suggests that 

 the hepatic cells are entirely engaged in the amyloid function of the liver, 

 and unconnected with the biliary secretion. 



According to such views as those before stated, the anastomosing net- 

 work of ducts described by Kiernan would be regarded as artificial pas- 

 sages between the cells, formed by the force of injection ; and there is no 

 doubt that passages of that sort may be made. In recent years, however, 

 Budge, Andrejewic, Hyrtl, Frey, and other observers have succeeded in 

 displaying by injection of the cellular substance of the lobules a network of 

 fine canals of cylindrical form and regular diameter, and having therefor.', 

 a character which cannot be explained on the supposition that they arc 

 irregular interspaces of accidental origin. The apparent improbability of 

 the ducts of a secreting gland taking origin in minute tubes destitute of 

 epithelium, and external to secreting cells, has led to great opposition to 

 the view that the ducts in question are really bile-ducts ; and Reichert has 

 suggested that they are lymphatics : but a set of researches have sub- 

 sequently been published which invest the theory that the bile-duct* 

 begin within a fine intralobular plexus, with additional weight. Chrzon- 

 szczewsky, pursuing a method of experimenting by what may be called the 

 natural injection of colouring matter into the vessels of living animals, by 

 which he had previously succeeded in colouring the tubes and vessels of the 

 kidney, sought for a colouring matter which, when introduced into the 

 blood, would be eliminated in part by the bile without dyeing the textures 

 indiscriminately ; and, after numerous failures, he at last found one sub- 

 stance with the requisite properties, viz., the sulpho-indigotate of soda 

 (in use under the name of " indigo-carmine "). A saturated watery solu- 

 tion of this substance was introduced, in repeated doses, into the circulation 

 of dogs and sucking-pigs, by the jugular vein ; and in an hour and a half 

 afterwards, while the animals were still living, the blood-vessels were either 

 washed out with chloride of potassium introduced by the portal vein, or 

 they were injected with gelatine and carmine. In specimens prepared in 

 this way, Chrzonszczewsky obtained an extremely fine network of gall-ducts 



