158 
MR. MARSHALL ON THE DEVELOPMENT 
thi-ougb the coronary sinus. Le Cat* * * § has recorded the following interesting variety, 
occurring in a child eight days old, in which he found “ les veines coronaires reunies 
dans un seul tronc, qui sans penetrer dans Toreillette droite, se jettoit dans la veine 
souclaviere gauche.” The course pursued by this single trunk from the heart to the 
left subclavian vein is not described; and, anomalous as this remarkable case has 
hitherto appeared, it is, perhaps, an example of the closure of the orifice of the left 
primitive vein in the right auricle, accompanied by a pervious condition of that 
vessel up to the cross branch in the neck. 
When the posterior cardiac vein is large and ends directly in the right auricle'!', 
the great coronary vein and coronary sinus may be comparatively small, but in- 
stances of its extreme diminution, or entire absence, only occur with some other 
deviation;!:. 
b. IVith transposition. The vena cava superior on the left side, and a coronary sinus 
on the right side. — When the arch of the aorta passes over the right bronchus, the 
veins do not always suffer transposition also, for in those cases in w’hich the aorta 
regains the left side of the vertebral column as it descends, the vena cava superior, 
together with the azygos, continues on the right side§. But in complete transposi- 
tion of the viscera (including the heart and great arteries), the vena cava superior 
descends on the left side, and the azygos vein is transposed to that side also|l. Here, 
the metamorphosis by occlusion has affected the right primitive veins, instead of the 
left ; and, the heart itself being entirely transposed, it is presumable that there would 
be found, in a recent specimen, a right cardiac venous trunk, that is to say, a coronary 
sinus on the right side, receiving the great coronary vein, together with an oblique 
auricular vein, a vestigial fold and the other remnants of the occluded second primi- 
tive venous trunk, as in the usual case. 
* Memoires de I’Acad. des Sciences, 1738, Hist. p. 44. This is a case already referred to in the note 
to p. 153. Dr. John Rnin (Cyclop. Anat. and Phys. Article Heart, p. 597) has suggested that Scemmer- 
EiNG had Le Cat’s case in view, when he states (De Corp. Humani Fabr. vol. v. p. .340) “ rarissime vena 
hsec in vena subclavia dextrd finitur,” being probably misled by an inadvertence of Haller, who, in quoting 
the case, has substituted the word " dextram” for “ sinistram” (Elem. Physiol, t. i. p. 375, editio 1757). It 
may be added, that the termination of the coronary vein in the left subclavian is, as explained in the text, 
readily reconcileable with the mode of development. 
t Otto {op. cit. p. 347, n. 8) and other authors. 
+ In one instance recorded by Lemaire (Bull, des Scienc. Med. 1808, vol. v. p. 21), two coronary veins are 
said to have joined a pulmonary vein, and so reached the right auricle ; but the facts seem to bear another 
explanation, the pulmonary vein in question being apparently a left superior cava descending in its wonted cir- 
cuitous course beneath the root of the left lung, and receiving two cardiac veins as usual. 
§ Abernethy {loc. cit.) and other cases by Fiorati, Sandifoet, Cailliot, J. F. Meckel, Bernhard, Otto, 
&c., quoted in Quain’s Arteries, p. 18. 
II A specimen in the Museum of University College, which is described and represented in Prof. Quain’s 
“Anatomy of the Arteries” (p. 17, plate 5. fig. 3). Haller in the right foetus of a double monster (De 
Monstri Dissection, i. 1739 ; Opera Minora, t. iii. p. 102). For references to other cases, see a paper by Dr. 
Watson, Med. Gazette, June, 1836, p. 393. Also Mr. W. Clapp, Med. Gazette, Jan. 1850. 
