On the intimate structure, and the distribution of the blood-vessels, of the human lung / by A.T.H. Waters.

  • Waters, A. T. Houghton (Alderman Thomas Houghton), 1826-1912.
Date:
[1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the intimate structure, and the distribution of the blood-vessels, of the human lung / by A.T.H. Waters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    respect the walls of the air-sacs ; but as the lobulettes are originally separate and independent bodies, as seen in the foetal lung, it is pro- bable that the vessels of each are distinct. If so, there must be, where the walls of two lobulettes are ui contact, two layers of capil- laries lying side by side; and from the mode of formation of the lobulettes, and from the fact that I have been able, in some prepa- rations of the adult lung, partially to separate the lobulettes from one another, I believe that their vessels are distinct, that they ter- minate in their proper radicle-vein, and that thus the capillaries on the outer wall of the lobulette are only exposed on one side to the atmosphere. The Bronchial Vessels.—It has long been held that the bronchial arteries are distributed to the air-tubes, the areolar tissue, and the vessels of the lungs, and that they pour their contents partly into the pulmonary veins, and partly into certain deep bronchial veins, which have been described by most anatomists as accompanying the arteries within the lungs. An opinion has also been entertained that a communication exists between the bronchial vessels and the branches of the pulmonary arteries. Without referring to the ex- periments and results of other observers, I proceed to state my own. My observations have been made on the lungs of the cat, the dog, the rabbit, the pig, the calf, and the sheep, as well as on those of man. The following remarks have special reference to the results obtained in the human lung. When the pulmonary artery is injected so that the fluid reaches the pulmonary plexus but does not pass to any extent into the pul- monary veins, the blood-vessels of the bronchial mucous membrane and of the other portions of the bronchial tubes never become in- jected. When, however, the injection is continued so as to fill the pulmonary veins, the vessels of the bronchial tubes become partially injected. When the pulmonary veins are injected, whether the pulmonary plexus be well-filled or not, the vessels of the bronchial tubes and of the bronchial mucous membrane are always injected. The bronchial tubes are often seen to be injected when the pulmonary plexus is only very partially so, the fluid seeming to find its way from the pulmonary veins into the vessels of the bronchial tubes more readily than into the capillaries of the air-sacs.