LYMPHATICS OF THE LIVER. 27 



of connective tissue divide the two systems of capillaries, as on 

 the larger blood- and biliary-vessels. 



Small branches of the portal vein and hepatic arteries com- 

 monly travel to the capsule through the intermediate passages 

 of the most superficial lobules. The former quickly break up 

 into their terminal branches, and are comparable to the inter- 

 lobular veins, supplying the lobules with blood on the surface 

 covered by the capsule. The latter having reached the capsule, 

 immediately divide, frequently in a stellate manner, the 

 branches sometimes forming loops which join with others to 

 constitute a wide-meshed arterial plexus, which anastomoses 

 with the mammary, phrenic, and suprarenal arteries. 



The capillary plexus of the lobules can be injected either 

 from the portal vein, the hepatic vein, or the hepatic artery ; 

 but the capillaries of the hepatic artery can only be filled by 

 injections introduced through the artery itself. 



Theile has given a very accurate account of the bloodvessels of 

 the liver, describing the arterial plexus in Glisson's sheath and in the 

 capsule as the plexus arteriosus. I do not however find he mentions 

 that the larger hepatic veins are surrounded by an arterial plexus. 

 Joh. Miiller believed that the blood passed directly from minute 

 arterial interlobular branches into the capillary plexus of the portal 

 vein ; but Theile found that these also broke up into capillaries like 

 the arterial branches accompanying the interlobular veins, as can be 

 readily shown in the liver of the Pig. Theile, Henle, and Kolliker 

 agree with Joh. Miiller in admitting the existence of peculiar rami 

 venosi capsulares, which, forming the above-mentioned internal roots 

 of the portal vein, convey the blood from the arterial capillaries of 

 the capsule into the branches of the vena portse. 



THE LYMPHATICS OF THE LIVER. The liver in Man is richly 

 supplied with lymphatics, which here, as elsewhere, are asso- 

 ciated with the connective tissue, and do not essentially differ 

 from those of other organs. The capillaries, as well as the 

 larger vessels, form frequent anastomoses. Numerous trunks, 

 provided with valves, carry off the lymph, in part through the 

 great fissure of the organ, and partly through the capsule, where, 

 especially near the ligamentum suspensorium, they are very 

 abundant. 



