Collateral Circulation (Anatomical Aspects)

The author offers a convenient reference book to the chief arterial and venous collateral channels of the human body. Although a brief review is given of the major circulatory pathways as found in standard anatomic textbooks, emphasis is placed on the communicating shunts as demonstrated in original dissections and as gleaned from the literature. The author has correlated in a refreshing, simple fashion material drawn from anatomic, physiologic and clinical sources as it relates to the problem of blood circulation. As such the study should hold wide interest. Easily accessible are the chief cross connections which develop in the vascular system on occlusion of vessels normally responsible for the circulation to a body part. A short historical review is followed by a lengthier note on the development of blood vessels. Embryology and comparative anatomy are drawn on and the author concludes that inheritance and hemodynamic forces incident to blood flow