From the hollow of the liver[15] arises the portal vein which is formed from the concurrence of the many slender veins of the liver. On the other hand, it divides again into innumerable parts and gives off an immense multitude of veins which afterward are inserted here and there into almost all the intestines and to the little adipose membranes mixed together, so that they provide nutritional substance for the liver in the generation of blood. For chyle and food are sent down from the stomach directly to the intestines; the pylorus yields an exit as soon as the stomach has received as much as suffices for its uses and has accomplished its coction. Unless it be transmuted into the nature of blood [this food] contributes very little toward the nourishment of the rest of the body. Therefore these numerous venules serve to draw out from the intestines the best juice of the nutriment as yet not sufficiently concocted, and deliver it to the hollow of the liver where the blood is made. Doubtless those venules can be called meseraics, or by the Greek word mesenterics. The Latins call them milk veins.[16] For their protection, lest in their numerous ramifications some of them be torn apart or rent by a more vigorous motion of the body, the PANKREAS, that is, glandular flesh which is sometimes called KALLIKREAS by the Greeks, attaches to the duodenum so that the venules may individually be more firmly supported. The blood passes from the hollow of the liver, in which it was formed a little earlier, to the gibbosity[17] of the liver; however, it is not the same kind as was made in the hollow but more pure and simple, since both biles have been strained from it and transmitted to their receptacles so that the blood may be more unsullied for nourishing the body wholesomely and for producing spirits. From the gibbosity the blood is extended throughout the whole body through the vena cava—called KOILĒ by the Greeks—and by the many branches of that vein. This vein surpasses all the rest of the veins of the body in size and arises from the gibbosity of the liver. Descending from this through the middle of the spine, one [branch] on each side seeks the kidneys, each branch extending a palm’s length. These branches of the vena cava are the emulgent veins.[18] In the body of that one whom we dissected very recently the left branch had a higher place of origin.[19] Very often, however, the opposite occurs, so that the right emulgent vein is carried higher in the body. Nature employs these emulgent veins for carrying down the watery part and bile of the blood from the liver to the kidneys. A like number of little branches of arteries in the same site, from the great aorta artery going under the vena cava, run an equal length into the kidneys under the emulgent veins, unburdening the heart of bile and watery blood; these have the name of emulgent arteries.