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XVL On the ultimate arrangement of the Biliary Ducts, and on some other 'points in 
the Anatomy of the Liver of Vertebrate Animals. By Lionel S. Beale, M.B., 
Professor of Physiology in King's College, London ; Physician to King's College 
Hospital. Communicated by F. Kiernan, Esq., F.R.S. 
Received June 14, — Read June 21, 1855. 
In his valuable paper published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1833, Mr. 
Kiernan describes and figures the anastomoses between branches of the duct in the 
left triangular ligament of the human liver. He also refers to communications 
existing between the ducts in other situations, as in the membranous bridge stretch- 
ing over the fissure for the umbilical vein, and upon the inferior surface of the 
diaphragm. In the same paper, this author gives a diagram of the manner in which 
he supposed the ducts to terminate in the lobules of the liver, and subjoins the fol- 
lowing remarks : — No such view of the ducts as that represented in this figure can 
be obtained in the liver. The interlobular ducts are in the figure seen anastomosing 
with each other, I have never seen these anastomoses, but I have seen the anasto- 
moses of the ducts in the left lateral ligament, and from the results of experiments 
related in this paper, I believe the interlobular ducts anastomose ; I have never 
injected the lobular biliary plexus to the extent represented in this figure.” 
Since the appearance of this important communication, the subject has been much 
investigated both in this' country and on the continent ; but as far as I can ascertain, 
no observer has yet succeeded in demonstrating the manner in which the ducts 
terminate, or has been able to show conclusively the precise relation which the 
hepatic cells bear to the biliary ducts. Various hypothetical views have been offered. 
Muller considered that the ducts terminated in blind extremities ; E, H. Weber, 
under the name of “Vasa aberrantia,” described ducts which formed a network in 
the transverse fissure of the liver, uniting the right and left hepatic ducts. In 1850 
the same observer described ducts terminating in blind extremities upon the surface 
of the external lobules of the cat’s liver, 
Krukenberg, Schroder van der Kolk, Retzius,Theile, Backer, Leidy and others, 
have adopted the view that the hepatic cells lie within a basement membrane ; but 
with reference to the arrangement of the cells within the tube, there is much differ- 
ence of opinion among them, 
Lereboullet, in his memoir on the “Foie gras,” published in 1853, advocates a 
similar view; but his representations are very diagrammatic, and for the most part 
taken from preparations examined by low powers, 
Henle, Gerlach, Hyrtl and Natalis Guillot look upon the finest gall-ducts as 
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