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Growth and Function in the Foetal Liver

Department of Anatomy, University of Glasgow

¹ Author's address: Department of Human Anatomy, University Museum, Oxford, U.K.

Received for publication 30 June 1955.

SUMMARY

Many investigators have demonstrated the decline which takes place in the relative weight of the liver during the development of the mammalian foetus; Carlyle (1945) and Wallace (1945) in the sheep, Jackson (1909) in man, Lowrey (1911) in the pig, Williamson (1948) and Addis & Gray (1950) in the rat, Latimer & Corder (1948) in the dog, and Latimer (1948) in the cat. The present work is an attempt to find the cause underlying this decline. Since the foetal liver contains not only hepatic tissue but also much haemopoietic tissue, it was first necessary to determine whether the decrease in the relative liver-weight represents a real diminution of true hepatic tissue or whether it simply reflects the progressive shift of haemopoiesis from liver to skeleton. In order to test these lternatives a method was devised for determining the total amount of true hepatic tissue, i.e. the total number of hepatic cells, in a given foetal liver, and applied to a series of foetuses covering the developmental period.

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