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Home  »  Anatomy of the Human Body  »  pages 1189

Henry Gray (1825–1861). Anatomy of the Human Body. 1918.

pages 1189

  The superior surface (facies superior) (Fig. 1085) comprises a part of both lobes, and, as a whole, is convex, and fits under the vault of the diaphragm which in front separates it on the right from the sixth to the tenth ribs and their cartilages, and on the left from the seventh and eighth costal cartilages. Its middle part lies behind the xiphoid process, and, in the angle between the diverging rib cartilage of opposite sides, is in contact with the abdominal wall. Behind this the diaphragm separates the liver from the lower part of the lungs and pleuræ, the heart and pericardium and the right costal arches from the seventh to the eleventh inclusive. It is completely covered by peritoneum except along the line of attachment of the falciform ligament.


FIG. 1085– The superior surface of the liver. (From model by His.) (See enlarged image)
  The inferior surface (facies inferior; visceral surface) (Figs. 1086, 1087), is uneven, concave, directed downward, backward, and to the left, and is in relation with the stomach and duodenum, the right colic flexure, and the right kidney and suprarenal gland. The surface is almost completely invested by peritoneum; the only parts devoid of this covering are where the gall-bladder is attached to the liver, and at the porta hepatis where the two layers of the lesser omentum are separated from each other by the bloodvessels and ducts of the liver. The inferior surface of the left lobe presents behind and to the left the gastric impression, moulded over the antero-superior surface of the stomach, and to the right of this a rounded eminence, the tuber omentale, which fits into the concavity of the lesser curvature of the stomach and lies in front of the anterior layer of the lesser omentum. The under surface of the right lobe is divided into two unequal portions by the fossa for the gall-bladder; the portion to the left, the smaller of the two, is the quadrate lobe, and is in relation with the pyloric end of the stomach, the superior portion of the duodenum, and the transverse colon. The portion of the under surface of the right lobe to the right of the fossa for the gall-bladder presents two impressions, one situated behind the other, and separated by a ridge. The anterior of these two impressions, the colic impression, is shallow and is produced by the right colic flexure; the posterior, the renal impression, is deeper and is occupied by the upper part of the right kidney and lower part of the right suprarenal gland. Medial to the renal impression is a third and slightly marked impression, lying between it and the neck of the gall-bladder. This is caused by the descending portion of the