ANATOMY OF THE BILIARY DUCTS WITHIN THE HUMAN LIVER

TLDR

The biliary system anatomy has been extensively studied, yet most focus has been on extrahepatic ducts, with intrahepatic duct morphology receiving comparatively little attention, especially before 1888 when anatomists concentrated on external liver morphology. Hugo Rex pioneered the study of intrahepatic biliary and vascular pathways in 1888 using injection‑corrosion, examining several mammalian livers—including humans—though the human sample size was likely very small.

Abstract

THE ANATOMY of the biliary system has been the subject of extended research for many years. Largely because of their surgical importance in cholecystectomies and the ease with which they may be studied, interest has been centered on the extrahepatic bile ducts, while comparatively little attention has been given to the gross morphology of the bile ducts within the liver. Prior to 1888, anatomists, other than histologists, directed their attention chiefly to the external morphology of the liver. In that year, Hugo Rex¹made the first attempt to study the intrahepatic course of the vascular and biliary channels by the injection-corrosion method. He investigated the livers of various mammals, including man, but he did not cite the number of human specimens observed, the number probably being very few as judged from the text. It was not until 1924 that a publication appeared which was concerned specifically with the intrahepatic