318 PROFESSOR FRANK J. COLE 



ately behind the region where its vessels enter and leave. From here it extends back- 

 wards, forming a separate bag in which the anterior lobe lies, and its only attachment is 

 in front where the mesentery passes from almost the entire anterior edge of the lobe on 

 to the pericardio-peritoneal partition, itself in its free portion consisting of a double 

 sheet, i.e. a peritoneal and a pericardial factor. Elsewhere it is the latter factor which 

 excludes the liver from the pericardial cavity. 



On the side of the intestine and the body wall the posterior lobe of the liver bears 

 a prominent anterior obliquely curved bevel for the reception of the gall bladder. 



When the lobes of the liver are turned over to the left and pinned down so as to 

 expose the whole of the gall bladder, the latter is seen to be a relatively very large sac. 

 It is dorsal to the liver, and entirely on the right side of the body. Two of its ducts 

 are seen at once {a.h.d. and^.A.,cZ.). They are the two hepatic ducts — really hepato-cystic 

 ducts — arising one from each lobe of the liver {a.l.l. and^.^.Z.), from its dorsal surface 

 in the middle line, respectively a little in front and a little behind the gall bladder 

 itself (^.6.). Between these two the bile duct (h.d.) leaves the ventro-mesial surface of 

 the gall bladder, and, passing somewhat forwards, soon enters the gut a little to the left 

 of the raid-ventral line and a short distance behind the heart. If the intestine be split 

 up, the bile duct is observed to open into it by a conspicuous aperture at the apex by a 

 large backwardly directed papilla. As the bile duct approaches the intestine its wall 

 becomes thickened — due to an aggregation under the serosa of the follicles of the 

 supposed " pancreas," the structure of which is described elsewhere. 



On opening the gall bladder, and delicately brushing its internal surface clean, we 

 observe a conspicuous depression, with an aperture at the bottom, on the surface facing 

 the intestine. This is the opening of the bile duct. A short distance in front, but to 

 one side of it, is the smaller and less obvious aperture of the anterior hepatic duct. A 

 slight distance behind and also to one, and the opposite, side (c^^ fig. 4) is another 

 similar opening — that of the posterior hepatic duct. There are thus three openings 

 into the gall bladder, and the hepatic ducts have no direct connection whatever with 

 the bile duct. In one specimen I found two anterior hepatic ducts, each having a 

 separate opening into the gall bladder, there being therefore in this case four cystic 

 openings. The additional duct, which was very small, was formed by the fusion of two 

 thread-like tubes from the anterior lobe of the liver, but on nearing the gall bladder it 

 became enlarged to the normal width and opened by a small aperture close to the 

 larger one of the normal duct. 



The anterior hepatic duct (a.h.d.) courses almost straight backwards, until it 

 reaches the gall bladder, where it bends abruptly on itself in a U and opens almost at 

 once into the cyst. The posterior hepatic duct [p.h.d.) passes almost straight for- 

 wards, but on reaching the gall bladder it bends over to the opposite side [cp. fig. 4), 

 almost at a right angle, to reach its aperture. This difference between the courses of 

 the two hepatic ducts I find also in the sections. As shown in fig. 4, each hepatic duct 

 is accompanied by a branch of the common portal vein (c.jj.v.) and of the coeliac 



