The Anatomy of the Lymphatic System (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 31 CHAPTER III. THE LYMPHATIC VESSELS OF THE SEROUS MEMBRANES. a. Lymphatics of the Omentum and the Pleura Mediastini. In the rabbit's omentum the lymphatics are easily demonstrated. Following the above-mentioned method, it is necessary only to pencil in situ the surface of the fresh omenlum and then to stain it in silver. Different portions of the omentum are differently circumstanced as regards lymphatics. In the neighbourhood of the greater curvature of the stomach, and in the portion of omentum covering its pyloric end, there occurs a rich network of lymphatics: they are related to the large blood-vessels in such a way that a group of the latter has a lymphatic running along both sides and communicating with one another by transverse and oblique lateral branches. The lymphatics are also distributed independently of large blood-vessels, chiefly between and around the lymphatic patches which, as mentioned above, are met with in great abundance in this part (the pylorus and greater curvature). Concerning their structure, there is little to add to what is already known. They are wide vessels, the walls of which consist only of one layer of endothelial plates; the latter, in the large lymphatics accompanying the blood-vessels, being of a short spindle shape, almost sinuous. These possess also valves and sacculated dilatations corresponding to them, and are to be considered as the main lymphatic trunks. The other class, running apart in the tissue, are not different in calibre, and have also a sinuous endothelium; but they are either without valves or have them only in a very few places, while they are provided with sinus-like dilatations springing from their sides. These are to be considered as the lymphatic capillaries. In the portion of omentum covering the ant...