474 Drs. Herring and Simpson. Relation of the [May 31, 



In 1902 Schafer (55) showed that the liver cells can be injected from the 

 portal vein, and that there is a direct communication by means of fine 

 channels between the lobular capillaries and the interior of the liver cells. 

 He could find no trace of perivascular lymphatics within the lobules, but 

 described the injection as having passed in a diluted form into the lymphatics 

 accompanying the branches of both the portal and hepatic veins. 



Several authors have argued the presence of perivascular lymphatics in 

 the lobules from the results of work by Fleischl (19), Kunkel, Kufferath (36), 

 and Vaughan Harley (21). These observers showed that ligature of the bile 

 duct in living animals is followed by escape of bile, not directly into the 

 blood, but into the lymphatics of the liver. Ebner* and Oppel (1900) 

 considered that the bile after ligature of the common bile duct finds its 

 way into lymphatics inside the lobules, and is prevented by them from 

 entering the blood-vessels directly. Such a view assumes that the leakage 

 of bile takes place within the lobules either from the liver cells direct 

 or from the bile capillaries, and that the bile is under these circumstances 

 taken up by intralobular lymphatics and passes from them into the 

 lymphatics accompanying the portal vein branches. 



Heidenhain (22), in 1881, showed that in jaundice experimentally produced 

 in animals the place where the bile is absorbed by the lymphatics does not 

 coincide with the place where the bile is formed. He found that a pressure 

 of 11 to 15 mm. Hg in the common bile duct causes bile to appear in the 

 lymphatics of the liver, that secretion of bile continues although this 

 absorption is taking place, and that after the obstruction is removed the bile 

 which escapes from the bile duct is not more concentrated than it was before, 

 showing that equal proportions of the solid and watery constituents of bile 

 were passing into the lymphatics. He also showed that in experimental 

 jaundice the lobules of the liver are not stained with bile unless the biliary 

 obstruction is one of long-standing duration and, in such cases, he argued 

 that the bile finds its way from the lymphatics into the lobules by 

 perivascular lymphatics, and so into the liver cells. Heidenhain believed in 

 the existence of intralobular lymphatics, but considered that they become 

 filled with bile secondarily, and then only in cases of long-standing biliary 

 obstruction where pathological changes have taken place leading to 

 obstruction of the larger lymphatics. In experimental jaundice he stated 

 that the bile breaks through the walls of the interlobular bile ducts into 

 lymphatics around the vessels, and never enters the interior of the lobules. 



Nauwerck (46), in 1897, criticised Vaughan Harley's results, believing that 

 they did not prove that bile always finds its way directly into the lymphatics 

 * Kolliker's 'Gewebelehre,' 1899. 



