The Superficial Veins of the Human Brain: Veins of the Brain Stem and of the Base of the Brain

Interest in a detailed anatomical description our knowledge of the venous system has of the veins of the human brain is of fairly been advanced more by radiological than by recent date. The general layout of the dural anatomical methods. This is due to the diffi- culty of obtaining a post-mortem display of sinuses and of the large encephalic veins the veins. Injection techniques often give de- that drain into them has long been known, ceptive results; most authors use back-flow but a more detailed study of the venous sys- tem has been made necessary by recent ad- injection from the larger collecting veins, vances in neurosurgery and neuroradiology. but this method generally gives very incom- plete results. The technique we have used is The progress and methods of neurora- diology have made it possible to follow the radically different, consisting of an arterial superficial venous network * further and injection of a solution of indian ink and gel- further. There are obvious practical advan- atine. When this injection is successful the tages in having a detailed knowledge of the arterial, capillary, and venous networks of venous network and these are not to be de- the encephalon are clearly displayed; the re- rived from a knowledge of the arterial net- sults are particularly clear in the venous work: the venous network is in close con- network which is visible from the main veins to their smallest branches.