Cited by T.W. Shore and J.H. Lewis, 'On the Structure of the Vertebrate Liver', Journal of Physiology 10 (5) (1889), pp. 408-432.
Tags: osmic acid, cochineal
Description:

Explanation of Plate XXIX (figs. 9-12):

'Fig. 9. Section of the liver of an Embryo Cat, 15 mm. in length. (x 400 diam.)

a. Capillary blood space.

b. Endothelial wall of capillary blood-vessel.

c. A liver tubule.

d. Lunmen of a liver tubule cut transversely.

Fig. 10. Portion of an osmic acid preparation of the liver of the Rat. (x about 400 diam.)

a. Spaces occupied by the network of blood capillaries cut longitudinally.

b. Similar spaces cut transversely.

c. Transverse section of a bile capillary lying between two liver cells.

d. A similar bile capillary lying at the angle where three liver cells meet.

Fig. 11. A similar preparation of the liver of the Mole. (x about 400 diam.)

a. Spaces for blood capillaries.

b. Section of a bile capillary lying between four cells. A sinmilar one is seen near it, lying between three cells.

Fig. 12. Portion of a section of a cochineal stained specimen of the liver of the Pig, from the peripheral part of a lobule. (x about 400 diam.)

a. Nucleated wall of a capillary blood-vessel.

b. Liver cells showing a collection of granules where two or three cells are contiguous.' (427-428)

 

Figs. 9 and 12 in text:

'There is nothing in the known history of the development of the liver which opposes the idea that the gland may have arisen from a solid mass of hypoblast cells formed at the extremity of the primitive hepatic diverticulum and which growing and forcing its way into the surrounding mesoblast, becomes itself interpenetrated by ingrowing mesoblast cells. By the development of these latter into blood capillaries the hypoblastic cell mass would become broken up into a network of solid anastomosing rods, in which secretion channels would subsequiently form, and which would be more or less fine according to the completeness with which the ingrowth of developing blood-vessels took place...

An examination of the liver of the types we have described in the light of our hypothesis will show that all the appearances can be explained by it. We can find no other satisfactory interpretation of the arrangement seen in the liver of the lamprey (Plate XXVII. Fig. 1). A comparison of a section of the eel's liver with that of a mammal (Plate XXVII. Fig. 2 and Plate XXIX, Fig. 12) shows clearly that a more intimate subdivision by capillaries in the case of the latter would account for the differences, and at the same time it is seen that the relative magnitude of the blood capillaries in the two cases is very different - those of the eel can scarcely be called "capillaries". That this is the true difference in the two cases is clear from a comparison of a section of the liver of an embryo mammal with that of the adult and with that of the eel (Plate XXVII. Fig. 2, and Plate XXIX., Figs. 9 and 12). On examining a section of the liver of the newt, the appearances seen, making allowance for the different sizes of the cells and smaller details, are more like those of the mammal's liver than that of any other of our types - (Plate XXVIII. Fig. 6) - There has been in this case a penetration of the mass of liver cells sufficiently intimate to have left but three or four rows of cells to form the tubules, and at the same time the total vascularity of the organ, as shown by the size of the blood spaces, is not so great as in the case of the eel or the mammal.' (423-424)