1906.] Liver Cells to the Blood-vessels and Lymphatics. 



473 



lobules with the lymphatics of the portal spaces. Disse could find no 

 endothelial cells lining these clefts, but nevertheless believed them to be 

 lymphatics. Disse, however, found that there is another means of communi- 

 cation between the hepatic and portal lymphatics by large trunks running 

 between the lobules in connective-tissue septa which unite the adventitia of 

 the hepatic veins to the connective tissue of the portal spaces. 



Disse also examined sections and teased preparations of healthy livers, and 

 came to the conclusion that the clefts round the capillaries of the lobules are 

 the lymph radicles of the liver parenchyma, and that their walls consist of 

 structureless ground substance and fine fibrils of an equal thickness forming a 

 membrane which is paved at intervals with the star-shaped cells that 

 surround the capillaries. The liver cells, he stated, are contiguous, on the one 

 side with bile capillaries, on the other with lymphatic spaces ; and the lymph 

 flow from the lobules can go in two directions, by the portal vein system 

 which emerges from the portal fissure, and by the hepatic system which runs 

 through the diaphragm to lymphatic glands in the posterior mediastinum. 



In 1896 Teichmann (60) made an additional contribution to the literature 

 of the subject. He described the lymphatics of the liver as forming networks 

 which surround the branches of the portal vein, but nowhere enter the 

 lobules. He failed to find lymphatics in the walls of the central veins of the 

 lobules and in the walls of the hepatic veins. 



In 1898 Eeinke(ol) described in the liver lobules connective-tissue cells 

 other than Kupffer's cells. He also stated that he had seen the lymph spaces 

 portrayed by Disse lying between the capillaries and the liver cells, and that the 

 connective-tissue cells form sheaths for them ; perhaps a lymphatic endothelium. 



In the same year Kupffer(38) took up a new position regarding the star- 

 shaped cells he had described in 1876. He now considered them to be 

 endothelial cells of a peculiar nature which belong to the walls of the blood- 

 vessels, and not connective-tissue cells lying outside the blood-vessels. 



Browicz(ll), at the same time and independently of Kupffer, arrived at a 

 similar conclusion, but went further in regarding these cells as having an 

 intravascular situation. He also stated that the existence of perivascular 

 lymphatics inside the liver lobules is doubtful. In subsequent papers Browicz 

 emphasised the fact that the connection of the liver cells with the blood 

 capillaries is much more intimate than has been generally supposed, and 

 insisted that in all probability the perivascular lymphatics described by 

 MacGillavry and others within the liver lobules do not exist. 



Holmgren (28), in 1902, found lymph channels in the liver cells of the 

 hedgehog, and considered that they are in direct communication with lymph 

 spaces lying between the liver cells and the blood-vessels. 



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