174 



MANUA.L OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



cells. This vein is called the intralobular vein, and is the radicle 

 of the efferent or hepatic vein, which carries the blood of the 

 liver to the inferior vena cava. 



The ultimate ramifications of the hepatic artery can be traced 

 to various destinations. Some go to the walls of the accompany- 

 ing vein and duct, and to the connective tissue which surrounds 

 these vessels. Many of the arterial capillaries unite with off- 

 shoots from the interlobular venous plexus and thus reinforce 

 the lobular capillaries. Other branches form an interlobular 

 capillary plexus, which flows into the interlobular branches of 



FIG. 73. 



Cells of the Liver. One large mass shows the shape they assume by mutual pressure, 

 (a) The same free, when they become spheroid. (6) More magnified, (c) During 

 active digestion, containing refracting globules like fat. 



the vena porta, together with those from the walls of the vein 

 and duct. 



The blood flowing to the liver in the large vena porta and the 

 small hepatic artery, is thus conducted by those vessels to the 

 boundaries between the lobules (interlobular veins), and thence 

 streams through the converging lobular capillaries to the iutra- 

 lobular vein, and is collected from the latter by the sublobular 

 tributaries of the hepatic vein, by which it is conducted back to 

 the general circulation, and enters the heart by the inferior vena 

 cava. 



