eS 
. 
of Sugar in the Liver, in the presence of Peptones. 193 
Average percentage results. 
Amount of Total 
liver taken. Method of treatment. Glycogen. Sugar. carbohydrates. 
40 grams With peptones (A), 6°46 per cent. 3°49 per cent. 13°48 per cent. 
40 Without peptones (B), 5-84 4°23 12°90 
+0°62 —0-%4 +0°58 
Both of these experiments tend to show that the presence of blood 
has no especial influence on the percentage of total carbohydrates ; 
fully as great an increase is to be noticed in the presence of peptone 
without blood, as when the latter is present. Evidently then, if the 
increase in total carbohydrates noticed in all of our experiments is 
really due to the post-mortem formation of carbohydrate matter from 
peptone it is quite certain that blood is not at all essential to the 
reaction, at least in the livers of rabbits. 
It is to be noticed, moreover, in the two last experiments that, in 
the absence of blood, the sugar is not increased in amount in the 
presence of peptone. On the contrary, the presence of peptone 
under such conditions appears to diminish the formation of sugar, 
glycogen being correspondingly increased. In all of the experiments 
with rabbits, it is apparent from the results, that any increase of 
sugar in the presence of peptone is in every instance counterbalanced 
by a corresponding decrease in glycogen. In the last two experi- 
ments, the same relationship between the amount of glycogen and 
sugar is to be noticed, only here the greatest percentage of sugar is 
to be found in that portion of the liver which was treated without 
peptones. This would suggest that blood either facilitates in 
some manner the action of such amylolytic ferment as is present in 
the liver, or else that it introduces an additional ferment which causes 
increased amylolytic action. Blood certainly does not contain any 
substance convertible into sugar by the action of boiling acids, 
since the increase in total carbohydrates is no greater in the presence 
of blood than in the presence of peptone alone. 
We have therefore tried the following experiment in order to as- 
certain whether blood by itself, in the absence of peptone, has any 
influence whatever on the formation of sugar. . 
Experiment VIL. 
A. B. 
50 grams of sampled liver (rabbit). 50 grams of sampled liver. 
27 grams of blood. 92 c.c. of water. 
65 c.c. of water. 
The blood from the same rabbit was poured’over the liver 35 min- 
utes after the death of the animal and the two flasks containing the 
Trans. Conn. AcAD., Vou. VII. 25 Nov., 1886. 
