EXCRETORY FUNCTION OF THE LIVER. 277 



are unimportant. Some recommend to add the sulphuric 

 acid first, and then to add the solution of sugar ; and some, 

 after adding to the liquid two-thirds of its volume of sul- 

 phuric acid, drop into the mixture one or two lumps of cane- 

 sugar. The reaction with the biliary salts is essentially the 

 same, whichever of these methods be employed. 



Excretory Function of the Liver. 



In 1862, in studying the properties and physiological re- 

 lations of cholesterine, we gave the first definite account of 

 an excretory function of the liver. The experiments and 

 observations upon which we based our conclusions were 

 extended and laborious, and, as far as we know, have not 

 been repeated in detail by other observers ; but the results 

 must be taken as positive, if the accuracy of the experiments 

 be admitted, and they have been adopted, to a greater or less 

 extent, by scientific authorities. The details of these ex- 

 periments are too elaborate to be given in full, as contained 

 in the original memoir. 1 



The few statements with regard to the function of choles- 

 terine to be found in works published before 1862 are very 

 indefinite. In most works on physiology, this substance is 

 hardly mentioned, it being generally regarded as a curious 

 principle, interesting only to the physiological chemist. We 

 have given, in the memoir referred to, extracts from the 

 works of Carpenter, Lehmann, Mialhe, and Dalton, which 

 contain all that is said of the probable function of choles- 

 terine ; and these quotations, which embody about all that 

 we could find on the subject, show that its office was not in 

 the least understood. Inasmuch as cholesterine is the only 

 excrernentitious principle as yet discovered in the bile, bear- 

 ing the same relation to this fluid that urea does to the urine, 



1 FLINT, Jr., Experimental Researclies into a New Excretory Function of the 

 Liver. American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Philadelphia, 1862, New Se- 

 ries, vol. xliv., p. 305, et seq. ; and RechercJies experimentales sur une nouveUe 

 fonction du foie, Paris, 1868. 



