On the relation of the liver cells to the blood-vessels and lymphatics

Abstract

The description by Schäfer (55) of a network of fine channels in the cells of the liver of the rabbit and cat which can be filled with injection material from the blood-vessels, and the confirmation of his observations in the livers of other animals as the result of our own experiments (26), have opened up several important questions concerning the minute anatomical structure of the liver. The presence of intracellular channels in the liver cells communicating with the blood-vessels is difficult to reconcile with the generally accepted views on the relations of the blood-vessels and lymphatics to the liver cells. Of late years several observers (Browicz (8), Schäfer (55)), have cast doubt on the presence of perivascular lymphatics in the liver lobules, and have suggested a direct supply of blood plasma from the vessels to the interior of the liver cells without interposition of lymph spaces. That the walls of the capillary blood-vessels of the liver possess a peculiar form of endothelial lining has been long recognised (Kupffer (37), Ranvier (50), and others). More recently Minot (45), from a study of the development of the liver vessels, has concluded that they are not true capillaries which have grown into the organ, but “sinusoids” which have been formed by a growth of the liver blastema into a large blood sinus, which, although having the appearance of capillaries, are actually spaces between the columns of liver cells lined by cells of an embryonic character. To resolve the question of the relationship of the blood lymph to the liver cells, we have in many kinds of animals injected the bile ducts in a number of animals and have further examined sections of liver with the same material. We have also injected the bile ducts in a number of animals and have further examined sections of liver stained by special methods. The results of our observations are recorded in this paper.