289 



was proposed for election and immediate ballot ; and the ballot having 

 been taken, Sir Edward Ryan was declared duly elected. 



The following communications were read : 



I. " On the Saccharine Function of the Liver." By GEORGE 

 HARLEY, M.D., F.C.S., Professor of Medical Jurispru- 

 dence in University College, London. Communicated by 

 Dr. SHARPEY, Sec. U.S. Received December 19, 1859. 



Although it is nearly 200 years since our countryman, the cele- 

 brated Dr. Thomas Willis, made the important discovery of the 

 occasional presence of sugar in the human urine, it was not, until 

 very recently, known that the formation of saccharine matter is con- 

 stantly going on in the healthy animal body. 



Since Bernard, in 1848, communicated to the French Academy 

 the discovery of the saccharine function of the animal organism, 

 physiologists hi all countries have more or less directed to it their 

 attention. For a time various opinions were held by different ob- 

 servers regarding the origin of the sugar found in the body ; but at 

 length it was generally admitted that the liver had the power of 

 forming a substance to which Bernard gave the name Glucogen ; 

 that this peculiar substance was transformed into sugar ; and that 

 the sugar in its turn disappeared in the capillaries of the different 

 organs and tissues of the body. 



In the summer of 1858, however, Dr. Pavy read a paper on the 

 "Alleged Sugar-forming Function of the Liver" before the Royal 

 Society, the object of which was to prove that the presence of sugar 

 in the animal economy is " due to a post mortem occurrence," that 

 as long as life continues, glucogen only is to be found, and not until 

 after death does the transformation of this substance into sugar begin. 



The question of the saccharine function of the liver being a sub- 

 ject to which I have more or less directed my attention since 1853, 

 when I communicated to the Socie'te' de Biologic de Paris an account 

 of an experimental procedure whereby diabetes can be produced 

 artificially in animals, the above-mentioned paper was to me one of 

 peculiar interest. The conclusions of the author were so much op- 

 posed to the results of my own experiments, as well as those of other 

 observers, that I felt anxious to test them. 



