On the development of the great anterior veins in man and Mammalia : including an account of certain remnants of foetal structure found in the adult, a comparative view of those great veins in the different Mammalia, and an analysis of their occasional peculiarities in the human subject / by John Marshall ; communicated by Professor Sharpey.

  • Marshall, John, 1818-1891.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the development of the great anterior veins in man and Mammalia : including an account of certain remnants of foetal structure found in the adult, a comparative view of those great veins in the different Mammalia, and an analysis of their occasional peculiarities in the human subject / by John Marshall ; communicated by Professor Sharpey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    19/52 (page 149)
    All the varieties of arrangement hitherto observed in the great anterior veins of the Mammalia may be classified according to the amount of deviation which they present from the type, pointed out by Rathke, as originally common to all the Vertebrata, viz. that of four lateral primitive trunks. The modifications of this type observed in the cold-blooded Vertebrata are strictly of a subordinate kind, affecting merely the relative size which particular vessels ulti- mately acquire. Even in birds there is no fundamental deviation from the original type. The four primitive lateral veins persist. No transverse branch is formed across the root of the neck, though a free communication exists between the jugular veins just beneath the skull. The right and left superior cavse remain independent of each other as originally laid down, and each receives its own azygos vein. Amongst the Mammalia, however, there appears to be no instance in which some change from the common primitive type does not take place. Throughout the whole class, so far as is known, there is the addition of a communicating branch across the root of the neck, between the two anterior primitive venous trunks. It is found even in the low bird-like Monotremes; and, should it prove to be universal, it will con- stitute one characteristic mark of the mammalian venous system. The formation of this transverse communicating branch, which of necessity pre- cedes the occlusion of the left primitive vein in the higher mammalian embryo, ap- pears as the first, the simplest and the only change in the lowest forms of the mam- malian series. Superadded to this preliminary step in the foetal development, and superadded also in the highest forms of adult Mammalia and in Man, is found an- other change, depending on one of two modes of partial occlusion of the left anterior primitive venous trunk. In this way three different permanent conditions arise. In all of them the trans- verse communication in the neck exists. The right venous trunk always constitutes the vena cava superior of that side; but the left vein either forms,—A, a similar large venous trunk on that side, named a left vena cava superior, which receives the left jugular and subclavian veins, the left intercostals and certain cardiac veins; or B, it is reduced to a smaller left venous trunk, which receives merely the left intercostal veins and some cardiac veins; or, C, it remains as a still smaller vessel, receiving only a few cardiac veins from the substance of the heart. These three conditions accordingly are distinguished by severally presenting— A. A right and a left vena cava superior. B. A right vena cava superior and a left azygos venous trunk. C. A right vena cava superior and a left cardiac venous trunk or coronary sinus. the veins from the substance of the heart terminate, and which will then be recognized as the great coronary- vein. This is the condition in Man and in most Mammalia. In fact, in no mammalian does the left canal of Cuvier entirely disappear. Even in cases where hv far the largest portion of it is obliterated, that part which runs along the posterior transverse furrow of the heart remains as the trunk of the cardiac veins.” I have availed myself of Dr. Bardeleben’s memoir, to introduce some additional examples of varieties of the great veins in animals.