LYMPHATICS OF THE KIDNEY. 105 



capsule. This receives its supply of blood partly from the 

 small arterise interlobulares that do not entirely break up into 

 the vasa efferentia of the glomeruli, and partly from the ter- 

 minal branches of the surrounding arterial trunks, as of the 

 phrenic, lumbar, and suprarenal arteries. Veins arise from the 

 capillaries, which partly discharge themselves into the stellate 

 veins of the cortex of the kidney, and partly into extraneous 

 veins. The latter accompany the corresponding arteries in 

 pairs. 



LYMPHATICS. Lymphatics of various size issue both from 

 the hilus and from the capsule of the kidney. The former 

 accompany the bloodvessels, but nothing is known respecting 

 their origin. The smaller trunks of the capsule, as is rendered 

 evident by careful injection, proceed from a plexus of small 

 lymphatics that lie between the fasciculi of the capsule. When 

 this plexus is injected, even under very moderate pressure, the 

 fluid enters the parenchyma of the kidney, and penetrates into 

 the fissural spaces dividing the tortuous canals of the cortex 

 from each other. The small lymphatics of the capsule, as well 

 as the larger trunks issuing at the hilus, become injected with 

 equal facility when the fissures of the kidney are filled with 

 fluid in consequence of obstructed flow of urine. This ready 

 passage of the fluids of one cavity into another is facilitated 

 by the presence of certain anatomical arrangements; but in 

 what these consist, and whether they persistently or only tem- 

 porarily favour the communication between the fissures and 

 the lymphatics, is unknown. 



CONNECTIVE TISSUE. The connective tissue of the kidney 

 does not everywhere exhibit the same structure; the fibrous cap- 

 sule and the immediate investment of the large bloodvessels in 

 the papillary portion of the medulla essentially consisting of 

 the fibrillar form, whilst the labyrinth of the cortex and the 

 limiting layer of the medulla chiefly consist of the cellular form 

 of this tissue. The fibrous framework of which the capsule is 

 composed is densest at the free surface. From its inner or at- 

 tached surface numerous delicate fibres dip into the substance 

 of the kidney between its morphological elements; these and the 



