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III. " On Lesions of the Nervous System producing Diabetes." 

 By FREDERICK W. PAVY, M.D. Lond. &c. Communicated 

 by Dr. SHARPED Sec. U.S. Received May 17, 1859. 



(Abstract.) 



The author commenced his paper by stating, that all the experiments 

 he had performed since his communication on the " Alleged Sugar- 

 forming Function of the Liver " had been placed in the possession 

 of the Royal Society, had confirmed the conclusions he had there 

 arrived at. As far as his knowledge extended, it might be said that 

 in the healthy liver during life there is a substance which he had 

 spoken of under the term of hepatine, and which possesses the che- 

 mical property of being most rapidly transformed into sugar when 

 in contact with nitrogenized animal materials. In the liver after 

 death this transformation takes place, but in the liver during life 

 there seems a force or a condition capable of overcoming the che- 

 mical tendency to a saccharine metamorphosis. 



Experiments are mentioned to show that when the medulla oblon- 

 gata is destroyed, and the circulation is maintained by the performance 

 of artificial respiration, the sugar formed in the liver as a post- 

 mortem occurrence is distributed through the system, and occasions 

 the secretion of urine possessing a strongly saccharine character. 



Although the destruction of the medulla oblongata leads to this effect, 

 yet division of the spinal cord, which has been practised as high as 

 between the second and third cervical vertebrae, has not been attended 

 with a similar result. The brain (cerebrum) has also been separated 

 from the medulla oblongata by section through the crura cerebri, and 

 from the results of the experiments in which this operation has been 

 performed, Dr. Pavy believed that the functions of the brain may be 

 completely destroyed, without placing the liver in the condition no- 

 ticeable after actual death, or after lesion of the medulla oblongata, 

 On account of the accidental disturbances, such as implication of the 

 medulla oblongata, possibly by concussion, obstruction of the respi- 

 ration, and the effects of the great loss of blood sometimes attending 

 division of the crura cerebri, the interpretation of the result is ren- 

 dered a little difficult. In an experiment, which proved most con- 

 clusive, performed to corroborate the author's previous observations 



