l6o NORMAL HISTOLOGY. 



In this connective tissue between the lobules are 

 found, in addition to the branchlets of the portal 

 vein, certain of the terminal branchlets of the 

 hepatic artery and the capillaries connected with 

 them, and the smaller gall-ducts. In the human 

 liver, on the contrary, there is very little connective 

 tissue between the lobules, only here and there small 

 masses are seen surrounding the branches of the 

 portal vein and its accompanying vessels, the lobules 

 merging, for the most part, insensibly into one 

 another. The hepatic artery sends its blood into 

 capillaries which are distributed largely to the walls 

 of the vessels and the connective tissue, and it 

 finally passes, directly or indirectly, into the intra- 

 lobular capillaries. 



We have finally to consider the gall-passages. The 

 larger gall-ducts, lined with a well-developed mucous 

 membrane, supplied with tubular and racemose 

 mucous glands, and covered with cylindrical epithe- 

 lium enter the liver with the other large vessels, and, 

 dividing and subdividing, accompany them in the 

 capsule of Glisson. As they pass inward they 

 become smaller and smaller, the mucous membrane 

 loses its glands and becomes simpler in structure 

 the small ducts consisting of little more than a 

 simple tube lined with low cylindrical or cuboidal 

 cells. Finally, as the ducts arrive at the periphery 

 of the lobules interlobiilar gall-ducts they are 

 lined with flat, polygonal cells ; here they become 

 continuous with the intralobular gall-passages or 



