1906.] Liver Cells to the Blood-vessels and Lymphatics. 477 



cooled 10-per-cent. formalin, and as soon as the gelatine had set was cut into 

 small pieces and replaced in the formalin. Sections were subsequently cut 

 in paraffin and stained with dilute haematoxylin. 



The injection can be made to pass beyond the valves without any rupture 

 of the vessel wall taking place ; it usually spreads first to the neighbouring 

 trunks and then enters the liver substance. We find no evidence of 

 superficial lymphatics on the surface of the liver in the dog or cat, and 

 in this respect agree with MacG-illavry, who could not find them in the dog 

 or rabbit. The large trunk which MacGillavry found on the surface of 

 the gall bladder is readily filled if the injection is made in the vicinity of 

 the gall bladder. This trunk receives its radicles from the connective tissue 

 around the gall bladder and pursues a tortuous course along the cystic duct, 

 to end in a lymphatic gland near the portal vein. Another large trunk 

 is often filled which runs from the connective tissue of the portal fissure along 

 the round ligament into the suspensory ligament of the liver ; it appears to 

 terminate by joining the lymphatics of the diaphragm, but we have not been 

 able to trace it further. This lymphatic trunk is evidently similar to the 

 one described by Teichmann and others ; it arises, however, not from surface 

 lymphatics, but from the connective tissue of Glisson's capsule, and is closely 

 related to the efferent lymphatics which accompany the portal vein. It 

 affords for the lymph of the liver an additional outlet by means of the 

 lymphatics of the diaphragm. 



One of the most remarkable features of an injection of the liver 

 lymphatics is the absence of any sign of the injection mass on the surface 

 of the liver ; vessels appear close to the fundus and at the sides of the gall 

 bladder and join its central trunk, but they are distinctly confined to the 

 connective tissue separating the gall bladder from the liver, and no vessel:, 

 join them from the surface of the organ. After a prolonged injection we 

 have found the wall of the inferior vena cava above the diaphragm coloured 

 to a certain extent by the presence of carmine gelatine in it, but the flow 

 along the wall of the inferior vena cava is very slow and does not 

 spread far. 



Whenever the liver has shown a distinct appearance of injection on its 

 surface, it has, in our experience, been clue to rupture into and injection 

 of the blood-vessels. In such cases the injection mass may or may not have 

 entered in sufficient quantity to reach the opened inferior vena cava. 



On cutting up a liver, the lymphatics of which have been injected in the 

 above described way, the injection mass is seen at many points in its 

 substance close to or surrounding the blood-vessels in the portal spaces. 

 In the neighbourhood of the portal fissure there is often a considerable 



