Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1843-4 / [Sir James Paget].
- James Paget
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1843-4 / [Sir James Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
30/66 (page 30)
![traced, as Mr. Kiernan describes them, though not usually with that stiff uniformity in which, for clearness’ sake, they are represented in his diagrams. But, without injections, the lobular divisions of the liver may be seen, especially in the pig’s liver, in which, as Muller describes it, the whole natural surface, as well as the surface of every secretion, is marked by white lines inclosing angular spaces, which lines are no arteries (as they are supposed by Kronenberg), but the ends of membranous septa of cellular tissue, which form distinct capsules round each lobule, and, altogether, divide the whole liver into minute spaces, so that when the glandular substance inclosed within these capsules is scraped away, they re¬ main like a fine honeycomb, composed of oval cells, about a line in length, and half a line wide. [The general truth of this description can be easily seen in the pig’s liver, and traces of the same arrangement in the human liver. The only point in which I think Muller is wrong is in describing the partitions as formed of fibro-cellular tissue. If one be cut from the interior of the liver, it will be found covered on both sides with hepatic cells and granules, which adhere to it much more firmly than those in the interior of the lobule do to one another. When these are scraped off, there remains a very thin and tough membrane, in which there are only a few filaments of fibro-cellular tissue, and which appears to be composed of a very dense network or networks of vessels, with gland-cells still adhering among them. The appearances presented in the pig’s liver are such as to indicate that its lobules are by no means generally or uniformly traversed by plexuses of ducts ; in their in¬ terior they appear to contain only large nucleated biliary cells, with various gra¬ nules loosely arranged : the ducts appear only in the walls of the lobules.] Muller adds to these evidences, that, if portions of liver be macerated for eight days in vinegar, the lobules may be easily separated from each other, and all will present smooth surfaces; and that, though the lobular structure seen in most ver- tebrata is absent in some fish, yet in several of the plagiostomatous fish it is shown by the arrangement of black pigment-cells, which everywhere follow the arrange¬ ment of the interlobular substance, so that the surface and sections of the liver exhibit islands of yellow substance, inclosed by dark lines. Secretion and properties of bile. A series of experiments by Schwann* has led to the distinct conclusion of the bile being indispensable to life. They consisted in removing a portion of the common bile-duct, and establishing an external fistu¬ lous opening into the gall-bladder, so that the bile might be naturally secreted, but be discharged externally, and not permitted to enter the intestine. Their general result was, that, of eighteen dogs thus operated on, ten died of the imme¬ diate consequences of the operation (by peritonitis and other affections aggra¬ vated, probably, by the want of bile): and, of the remaining eight, two recovered and six died. In the six which died, death was the result of nothing but the re¬ moval of the bile; after the third day, they daily lost weight, and had all the signs of inanition, e. g. emaciation, muscular debility, uncertain gait, falling of the hair. They lived from seven to sixty-four daysf after the operation; and the inanition was the greater the„longer they survived. Young dogs appeared to die rather sooner than old ones. Licking the bile as it flowed from the fistula and swallowing it, had no influence on the consequences of the operation. In the two dogs that recovered, the importance of the bile was equally well shown; for in these it was found, when they were killed, that the passage for the bile into the intestine had been restored3 and the period of its restoration wTas distinctly marked by their weight (which had previously been regularly decreasing) being augmented and continuing to increase till it amounted to what it was before the operation 3 and also by the fistulous opening into the gall-bladder healing and the discharge of bile ceasing. Schwann says he is engaged in further and minute examinations to prove in what way the bile serves its important purpose; and these will probably prove how far several theories respecting it (of which not a few have appeared this year) are true or false. The chemical composition of the bile has been the subject of careful examina- * Muller’s Archiv, Heft ii, 1844. T One lived two months and a half; but it is not impossible that the bile-duct was for a time restored.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30385611_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
