16 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



store of glycogen can be filled up when sugar is flowing from 

 the intestine and then drawn upon when demands arise, the 

 glycogen being reconverted into sugar and transported in this 

 form to the seats of utilisation. 1 



Bernard's discoveries thus provided physiology with a clear 

 and simple view concerning one fundamental aspect of the 

 metabolism of carbohydrates and this view is one which still 

 claims the suffrages of almost all. The facts in support of it 

 seem now, as we shall see, more cogent than they did to 

 Bernard's contemporaries. 



Pavy's Antagonism to the Glycogenic Hypothesis 



Yet Pavy dissented wholly from Bernard's point of view. 

 Every word that he spoke or wrote concerning the metabolism 

 of carbohydrates emphasised his antagonism to it ; throughout 

 his life he was engaged in marshalling facts which, in his belief, 

 proved it to be in error. To understand his teaching and the 

 drift of his work, it is very necessary to appreciate this 

 antagonism and how it arose. Before tracing its origin, how- 

 ever, it may be well to point out that Pavy's earlier views, 

 though they remained intact until quite the final period of his 

 life, were modified ultimately not a little by contact with the 

 work of others. Those who knew him ultimately are well 

 aware that during a long period he read but little of the 

 current literature. He was impatient of the dominance of 

 Bernard's views on the Continent and discussed his work 

 but little with his colleagues save when engaged in actual 

 polemics (which, it must be confessed, were somewhat of a 

 joy to him). 



When still upon the active staff of Guy's, his purely 

 scientific work was confined within the four walls of his labora- 

 tory there. Subsequently (in the later nineties), when working 

 at the laboratories of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, 



1 It might be termed therefore a " glycotactic," or, much more accurately, a 

 " glycodianomic organ (8iavefia>). My colleague, Mr. E. Harrison of Trinity 

 College, who suggested the latter word, tells me that Plato speaks somewhere of 

 the lungs as the " Stewards of the Winds." " Steward of the Sugar " would so 

 exactly express the nature of the function of the liver that but for fear of pedantry 

 one would be inclined to call it " glycotamieutic." 



