Fig. 363—Head of a fish-embryo, with rudimentary vascular system, from the left. dc Cuvier’s duct (juncture of the anterior and posterior principal veins), sv venous sinus (enlarged end of Cuvier’s duct), a auricle, v ventricle, abr trunk of branchial artery, s gill-clefts (arterial arches between), ad aorta, c carotid artery, n nasal pit. (From Gegenbaur.
We have a further important advance in the Tunicates, which we have recognised as the nearest blood-relatives of our early vertebrate ancestors. Here we find for the first time a real heart—i.e. a central organ of circulation, driving the blood into the vessels by the regular contractions of its muscular wall, it is of a very rudimentary character, a spindle-shaped tube, passing at both ends into a principal vessel (Fig. 221). By its original position behind the gill-crate, on ventral side of the Tunicates (sometimes more, sometimes less, forward), the head shows clearly that it has been formed by the local enlargement of a section of the ventral vessel. We have already noticed the remarkable alternation of the direction of the blood stream, the heart driving it first from one end, then from the other p. 190. This is very instructive, because in most of the worms (even the Enteropneust) the blood in the dorsal vessel travels from back to front, but in the Vertebrates in the opposite direction. As the Ascidia-heart alternates steadily from one direction to the other, it shows us permanently, in a sense, the phylogenetic transition from the earlier forward direction of the dorsal current (in the worms) to the new backward direction (in the Vertebrates).
As the new direction became permanent in the earlier Prochordonia, which gave rise to the Vertebrate stem, the two vessels that proceed from either end of the tubular heart acquired a fixed function. The foremost section of the ventral vessel henceforth always conveys blood from the heart, and so acts as an artery; the hind section of the same vessel brings the blood from the body to the heart, and so becomes a vein. In view of their relation to the two sections of the gut, we may call the latter the intestinal vein and the former the branchial artery. The blood contained in both vessels, and also in the heart, is venous or carbonised blood—i.e. rich in carbonic acid; on the other hand, the blood that passes from the gills into the dorsal vessel is provided with fresh oxygen—arterial or oxydised blood. The finest branches of the arteries and veins pass into each other in the tissues by means of a network of very fine, ventral, hair-like vessels, or capillaries (Fig. 359).
Fig. 364—The five arterial arches of the Craniotes (1–5) in their original disposition. a arterial cone or bulb, a″ aorta-trunk, c carotid artery (foremost continuation of the roots of the aorta). (From Rathke.)
Fig. 365—The five arterial arches of the birds; the lighter parts of the structure disappear; only the shaded parts remain. Letters as in Fig. 364. s subclavian arteries, p pulmonary artery, p′ branches of same, c′ outer carotid, c″ inner carotid. (From Rathke.)
Fig. 366—The five arterial arches of mammals; letters as in Fig. 365. v vertebral artery, b Botall’s duct (open in the embryo, closed afterwards). (From Rathke.)
When we turn from the Tunicates to the closely-related Amphioxus we are astonished at first to find an apparent retrogression in the formation of the vascular system. As we have seen, the Amphioxus has no real heart; its colourless blood is driven along in its vascular system by the principal vessel itself, which contracts regularly in its whole length (cf. Fig. 210). A dorsal vessel that lies above the gut (aorta) receives the arterial blood from the gills and drives it into the body. Returning from here, the venous blood gathers in a ventral vessel under the gut (intestinal vein), and goes back to the gills. A number of branchial vascular arches, which effect respiration and rise in the wall of the branchial gut from belly to back, absorb oxygen from the water and give off carbonic acid; they connect the ventral with the dorsal vessel. As the same section of the ventral vessel, which also forms the heart in the Craniotes, has developed in the Ascidia into a simple tubular heart, we may regard the absence of this in the Amphioxus as a result of degeneration, a return in this case to the earlier form of the vascular system, as we find it in many of the worms. We may assume that the Acrania that really belong to our ancestral series did not share this retrogression, but inherited the one-chambered heart of the Prochordonia, and transmitted it directly to the earliest Craniotes (cf. the ideal Primitive Vertebrate, Prospondylus, Figs. 98–102).
The further phylogenetic evolution of the vascular system is revealed to us by the comparative anatomy of the Craniotes. At the lowest stage of this group, in the Cyclostomes, we find for the first time the differentiation of the vasorium into two sections: a system of blood-vessels proper, which convey the red blood about the body, and a system of lymphatic vessels, which absorb the colourless lymph from the tissues and convey it to the blood. The lymphatics that absorb from the gut and pour into the blood-stream the milky food-fluid formed by digestion are distinguished by the special name of “chyle-vessels.” While the chyle is white on account of its high proportion of fatty particles, the lymph proper is colourless. Both chyle and lymph contain the colourless amœboid cells (leucocytes, Fig. 12) that we also find distributed in the blood as colourless blood-cells (or “white corpuscles”); but the blood also contains a much larger quantity of red cells, and these give its characteristic colour to the blood of the Craniotes (rhodocytes, Fig. 358). The distinction between lymph, chyle, and blood-vessels which is found in all the Craniotes may be regarded as an outcome of division of labour between various sections of our originally simple vascular system. In the Gnathostomes the spleen makes its first appearance, an organ rich in blood, the chief function of which is the extensive formation of new colourless and red cells. It is not found in the Acrania and Cyclostomes, or any of the Invertebrates. It has been transmitted from the earliest fishes to all the Craniotes.