190 MESSES. BEDDAED AND TEEVES ON THE 



that joined to form the common tube within an inch of their points of exit from the 

 liver. A very large plexus of sympathetic nerves accompanied the portal vein to the 

 liver. 



The common bile-duct had a diameter of half an inch, the portal vein a diameter of 



2J inches. 



There were three hepatic veins, which entered the vena cava almost immediately 

 after their exit from the liver. 



There was no gall-bladder. 



The Coeliac Axis. 



The arrangement of the branches of the coeliac axis differed in no very essential 

 respect from the corresponding vessels in the Horse. The trunk broke up into three 

 divisions — gastric, hepatic, and splenic. The gastric artery (PL XXXIII. G.a) ran 

 from right to left, to reach the gullet as it entered the stomach • at this point the 

 vessel broke up into an inferior (anterior) (1) and a superior (posterior) branch (s), the 

 former passing in front of the oesophagus and the latter behind (PL XXXIIL). The 

 anterior artery followed the line of the lesser curvature, and ended by anastomosing 

 with the pyloric branch of the hepatic ; it supplied the greater part of the anterior 

 wall of the stomach with the exception of the pyloric cul-de-sac, and its offshoots ended 

 by anastomosing with offshoots from the posterior artery, from the splenic artery, the 

 gastro-epiploica sinistra and the gastro-epiploica dextra. The posterior vessel (s) was of 

 smaller size than the anterior ; near its origin it gave off a branch that, running upwards 

 along the posterior surface of the gullet, entered the thorax. The main vessel was 

 distributed to the posterior wall of the stomach after the same manner that its com- 

 panion vessel was distributed to the anterior surface, with the exception that it did not 

 approach the pylorus so closely ; indeed, both walls of the viscus in the vicinity of the 

 lesser curvature were supplied exclusively by the anterior artery. The posterior artery 

 of the stomach anastomosed with the anterior vessel and with branches from the 

 splenic and both of the gastro-epiploic arteries. 



The hepatic artery passed directly forwards to the portal fissure. Just before 

 entering the gastro-hepatic omentum it gave off a branch that, passing downwards 

 across the posterior wall of the pylorus divided into two vessels, the superior pancreatico- 

 duodenal (s.p.d) and the gastro-epiploica dextra (Q.e.d). The former artery ran 

 between the layers of the meso-duodenum, and, having supplied the greater portion of 

 the duodenum, terminated by anastomosing with the inferior pancreatico-duodenal from 

 the great mesenteric. The right gastro-epiploic artery, soon after its origin, gave off 

 two pyloric branches — an anterior and a posterior. These were distributed to the 

 region of the pylorus and to the walls of the pyloric cul-de-sac. They anastomosed 

 with branches of the gastric artery and of the right gastro-epiploic vessel ; the latter 

 vessel was of large size, and ran in the great omentum at a distance of from 3 to 



