panci'eas)  is  thus  conveyed  to  a  fine  vascular  interlobular
plexus  around  the  liver-lobules,  from  which  it  flows  on
through  the  capillaries  {lobular  plexus)  of  the  lobules  them-
selves. These  (Fig.  1 17)  unite  in  the  centre  of  the  lobule  to
form  a  small  intralobular  vein,  which  carries  the  blood  out
and  pours  it  into  one  of  the  branches  of  origin  of  the  hepatic
vein,  called  the  sublobular  vein.  Each  of  the  latter  has
many  lobules  emptying  blood  into  it,  and  if  dissected  out
with  them  (Fig.  118)  would  look  something  like  a  branch  of
a  tree  with  apples  attached  to  it  by  short  stalks,  represented


Flo.  118.— A  small  portion  of  the  liver,  inieeted,  and  magnified  about  twenty
'diameters.'  Tlie  blood-vessels  are  represented  white;  the  large  vessel  is  a  sub-
lobular vein,  receiving  the  intralobular  veins,  which  in  turn  are  derived  from  the
capillaries  of  the  lobules.
by  the  intralobular  veins.  The  blood  is  finally  carried,  as
already  pointed  out,  by  the  hepatic  veins  into  the  inferior  vena
cava.  The  hepatic  artery,  a  direct  offshoot  of  the  cceliac
axis,  ends  mainly  in  Glisson's  capsule  and  the  walls  of  the
blood-vessels  and  bile-ducts,  but  some  of  its  blood  reaches
the  lobular  plexuses;  it  all  finally  leaves  the  liver  by  the
hepatic  veins.
The  bile-ducts  can  be  readily  traced  to  the  periphery
of  the  lobules,  and  there  communicate  with  a  network  of
extremely  minute  commencing  bile  ducts,  ramifying  in  the
lobule  between  the  hepatic  cells  composing  it.
