270 DR. J. MURIE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CAAING WHALE. 
split and sent rami to the parietes of the abdomen and genital parts. The second of 
the two branches, corresponding to the internal iliac, only proceeded for an inch and a 
half, when it separated into an artery and minor branches, apparently supplying the 
fleshy and other deep genito-urinary regions. The other artery of equal calibre I 
followed to beneath the os innominatum and interpelvie fascia; there it broke up 
into several diminutive channels: some of these were distributed to the pubo- and 
ilio-coccygeus muscle &c.; others, with a nerve, pierced the interpelvic fascia at the 
notch, just behind the anterior capitulum of the bone’. 
The vena cava inferior, after leaving the deep border of the liver and passing to the 
diaphragm, received thereon numerous phrenic tributaries. Among the large venous 
sinuses situated at the pleural bridge, there were many tortuous twigs, already alluded 
to. ‘The series of these derived from the surface of the lungs advanced towards each 
pulmonary gland, and passing both above and beneath, joined the larger vessels. The 
great vein-channels at this part did not appear to have valves®, but instead interiorly 
showed a compound character. Longitudinal septa existed and divided the vessel into 
compartments of unequal calibre. Moreover, here and there intercommunication took 
place between the larger passages by oblique twigs, which ramified within the septal 
walls, Thus a kind of retial sinus obtains, something like, but less complicated than 
that within the neural canal. An artery which I took for the superior phrenic branch 
of the internal mammary accompanied the phrenic nerve. This, besides dividing into 
branches, supplying the diaphragm, pleura, and adjoining parts, also yielded the offshoots 
which ramified superficially and deeply upon the lymphatic bodies, and then, as the arterial 
network, spread in long tortuous parallel radii over the surface of the lungs’. 
As a vascular reservoir, I here insert remarks on the spleen. It lies upon the right 
side of the first stomach, below the left extremity of the pancreas, and just free from 
the omental attachment. It is said by others to be compound. In my specimen it is 
composed of three lobes, together somewhat quadriform and flattened, but each broader 
than long. It is moderately firm, and weighed 103 ounces. Altogether it is relatively 
small, 53 inches long by 4 inches broad. 
In various parts of the body, but notably in the neck, are firm glands, many, doubt- 
less, belonging to the lymphatic system, but some which seem rather to partake of the 
nature of blood-reservoirs. I examined several of these, but I did not inject them, so 
possibly may be mistaken as to their true relationship with the circulatory apparatus. 
In one delineated in figs. 40, 41, it is seen that the cervical vascular plexus is in close 
* Consult Professor Struther’s remarks, “ Anat. of a Great Fin-Whale,” Journ. of Anat. 1871, p.110, pl. 8. fig. 3. 
* Barkow, op. cited, pl. 16. fig. 3, shows that imperfect valves do exist in certain of the veins of Balenoptera. 
* «On a Supplementary System of Nutrient Arteries for the Lungs,” Brit. & For. Med. Chir. Review, 
January 1865. In this paper Professor Turner demonstrates a vascular arrangement in the human body in 
many ways according with the above. Vide also Dr. Chiene, “ Obliteration of Coeliac and Mesent. Arteries,” 
Journ. of Anat. 1869, p. 65, 
