126 
DR. C. H. JONES ON THE STRUCTURE 
the liver of the Sheep, but in the Human subject and in the Pig I have made obser- 
vations precisely similar. 
In proceeding next to speak of the parenchyma of the liver in Mammals, I must 
recur to some points which I have dwelt on in a previous paper ; several of these 
have been fully confirmed by my later observations, but in respect to one I have 
fallen into a considerable error. I described (as Mr. Bowman had previously done) 
the cells composing the lobules as arranged in long radiating series around the inter- 
lobular vein, the series however communicating with each other, and presenting a 
more or less decidedly plexiform arrangement : I observed the sides of the lobules to 
be invested by a membrane, which was continued across the floor of the fissure to 
line the side of the opposite lobule ; this membrane, in the Rabbit and often in the 
Sheep, is truly homogeneous, and resembles exactly the basement tissue. I concluded 
it to be such, and believed that its presence afforded exact information of the mode 
in which the excretory duct terminated, which would thus appear to have expanded 
into the interlobular fissure. This view was further confirmed by the observation that 
the supposed basement membrane was often deficient, the marginal cells of the 
lobules being then irregularly prominent, and crowded with secretion globules, which 
appeared to be escaping in great numbers into the interlobular fissure. Subsequent 
examination has convinced me that the membrane investing the lobules is not really 
the basement tissue of the ducts, but a continuation of the capsule of Glisson ; that 
however it is frequently of homogeneous texture, that it is also often absent, and 
that the marginal cells are then in the condition which may be termed active, are 
points which repeated examination has fully confirmed. Respecting the office of the 
interlobular fissure as a receptacle of the secretion, and pro tanto a portion of the duct, 
I hardly feel able to make confidently a general statement ; it certainly is often seen 
crowded with globules of secretion, which have evidently been produced by the 
marginal cells of the lobules ; at other times it appears empty, and the sides of the 
lobules are evenly lined by the investing membrane ; not unfrequently (at least in 
the Sheep) the interlobular ‘‘ fissure” has completely disappeared, and even the 
space” become contracted, from the encroachment of the peripheral cells of the 
lobules, so that the mammalian liver has then assumed pretty nearly the condition 
of the undivided liver of Fishes : — a conclusion probably not far from the truth is, that 
the fissure may often serve as a receptacle for the secreted product, especially when 
the gland is in a high state of activity, but that under ordinary circumstances the 
removal of the seereted bile may be effected without its having been first received 
into the fissure. I may here record an observation which I made on the liver of a 
dog who died of granular disease of the kidneys. On the surface of a section of the 
organ there were seen a number of yellow ramifying lines or tracts, which were found 
to be occasioned by the accumulation of a quantity of yellowish material in the portal 
canals and fissures ; this deposit undoubtedly was in part of biliary nature, and 
seemed to indicate that the absorbing action of the excretory ducts having been 
