4: PREFACE. 



investigated them by original experiments, and has suc- 

 ceeded in developing new facts of a certain degree of value ; 

 but it has been his endeavor not to give to these questions 

 undue prominence, to the prejudice of other subjects of equal 

 importance to the physiological student. The most promi- 

 nent points developed by original investigation in the present 

 volume are, the discovery of an excretory function of the 

 liver, that had never before been described, and the mechan- 

 ism of glycogenesis, a question that seems now to be defini- 

 tively settled, notwithstanding the apparently opposite 

 results obtained by different experimenters. 



Since the chapter on the glycogenic function of the liver 

 has been printed, the author has seen an analysis of a series 

 of observations on this subject, in which his conclusions with 

 regard to the mechanism of the formation of sugar in the 

 economy have been fully confirmed. The views embodied 

 in this chapter, however, are entirely original, and were 

 published in the New York Medical Journal in January, 

 1869. 1 The confirmatory observations, by Tieffenbach, are 

 also original, as far as any knowledge of this publication is 

 concerned, and were published in the form of an Inaugural 

 Dissertation, later in the same year. 3 In laying claim to 

 priority of publication, the author fully appreciates the im- 

 portance of these independent experiments, by which the 

 accuracy of his own researches have been so fully confirmed. 



1 FLINT, Jr., Experiments undertaken for the Purpose of reconciling some of 

 the Discordant Observations upon the Glycogenic Function of the Liver. New 

 York Medical Journal, Jan., 1869, p. 373. 



2 TIEFFENBACH, Ueber die Existenz der glycogenen Function der Leber, Disser- 

 tation, Konigsberg, 1869. Zeitschrift fur rationelle Medidn, Leipzig u. Heidel- 

 berg, 1869, Dritte Reihe, Bd. xxxv., S. 210. 



