A Century of Study Upon the Development of the Eutherian Vena Cava Inferior

Abstract

Contains an examination of the work of the pioneers in this field and of the opinions on that work expressed in the historical reviews by some later writers. Stress is laid on the extensive and exact knowledge of V. Baer and Rathke and some of Stark''s criticisms of the latter author''s work are found to be unwarranted. Rathke, indeed, is credited with many of the interpretations usually attributed by later writers to Goette. Hochstetter is credited with the first recognition of the embryonic precursor of the post-renal vena cava and the work of Kerschner and others in this connection is examined in some detail. The study concerns the foundations upon which later authors have based their work rather than the details of later work as such. The writer refers to his own recent finding of an embryonic cranial serial homologue of the post-renal vena cava not destined to enter into the formation of the azygos and of a caudal serial homologue of the azygos which takes no part in the formation of the post-renal vena cava. He believes that the process involved in the formation of the vena cava inferior is more complicated than that indicated by the present state of the literature.