348 



THE HUMAN BODY. 



been referred to as differing from all other veins in that it 

 not only receives blood from a system of capillaries but ends 

 in a second set of capillaries, which lie in the liver. The 

 quantity of blood brought to supply the hepatic capillaries 

 by the hepatic artery is in fact much less than that brought 

 by the portal vein. The stomach, the intestines, the pancreas 



and the spleen are supplied 

 with arterial blood from 

 three great branches of the 

 aorta. The most anterior 

 of these, the cceliac axis, 

 springs from the aorta close 

 beneath the diaphragm and 

 divides into the hepatic 

 artery, splenic artery, and 

 arteries for the stomach; 

 some of these divisions may 

 be seen in Fig. 119. The 

 pancreas is supplied partly 

 from the hepatic, partly 

 from the splenic artery. 

 The two other branches 

 (superior and inferior mes- 

 enteric artery) are given oif 

 from the aorta lower down 

 in the abdominal cavity; 

 the former (5, Fig. 119) 

 supplies the small intestine 

 and half of the large, the 

 FIG. 120. Diagram of abdominal part of latter the remainder of the 



alimentary canal. C, the cardiac, and P, ,, -, , -, 



the pyloric end of the stomach; A the large. Ihe blood paSSing 



duodenum; J, I. t,he convolutions of the , -, T, ,1 o*.f/--mnei 



small intestine: cc, the caecum with the through all these arteries 



vermiform appendix; AC. ascending, TO, Vi^orimoa vcmrm in thp 

 transverse, and DC, descending colon; R, 06001868 VCllOUS 6 



the rectum. capillaries of the organs 



they supply, and is gathered into corresponding veins (Fig. 

 119) which unite near the liver to form the portal vein. 

 The further course of the blood carried to the liver (partly 

 .arterial from the hepatic artery, partly venous from the portal 

 system) has been described already (p. 345), 



