XUI1I.—Tut Post-morrem Formation or SuGaR IN THE Liver, 
IN THE PRESENCE OF Prepronres. By R. H. CuirreENDEN AND 
* 
ALEXANDER Lampert, B.A., Pu.B. 
CLAUDE BrERNARD’S discovery in 1848, that the liver contains 
sugar, both before and after death, led at once to the inquiry as to 
the source of the sugar. This was apparently answered by Bernard’s 
later discovery of glycogen, an amylaceous body readily convertible 
into sugar by acids and various ferments. Thus, Bernard’s theory 
that the liver sugar resulted exclusively from glycogen has long been 
an accepted fact. In 1880, however, Seegen and Kratschmer in the 
first of a series of investigations,* state that the sugar formed in the 
liver does not have its origin, as supposed by Bernard, wholly in gly- 
cogen but that it is undoubtedly formed im part from other material. 
In a later communicationt the same investigators show, in corrobora- 
tion of their previous statement, 1. that the amount of sugar in the 
liver is increased very rapidly after death, in one case nearly 50 per 
cent. of the entire amount being formed within 10 minutes, while the 
whole process comes to an end inside of 24 hours; 2. that the glyco- 
gen formed in the liver is much more resistant to ferment action than 
has hitherto been supposed and that consequently the post-mortem 
formation of sugar by the action of a ferment upon glycogen could 
not take place so rapidly as the above. Moreover, direct experi- 
ments with dogs and with rabbits showed that in the first few hours 
after death, there was but little if any diminution in the amount 
of glycogen. Hence, Seegen and Kratschmer claim that the amount 
of glycogen remaining essentially the same, while the amount of 
sugar is greatly increased, tends to show conclusively that the 
liver sugar must be formed from some other material than glycogen 
and they venture the opinion that this source, whatever it may be, 
furnishes all of the liver sugar. 
Boehm and Hoffmann,{ however, take exception to the views of 
Seegen and Kratschmer, claiming possible analytical inaccuracies 
from the methods of procedure. They show, moreover, by experi- 
* Ueber Zuckerbildung in der Leber. Pfliiger’s Archiv, vol. xxii, p. 236. 
| Pfliiger’s Archiv, vol. xxiv, p. 467. 
{ Ueber die postmortale Zuckerbildung in der Leber. Pfliiger’s Archiv, vol. xxiii, 
p. 205. 
