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II. " Contributions to the Physiology of the Liver Influence 

 of Alkalies." By FREDERICK W. PAVY, M.D. Com- 

 municated by Dr. SHARPEY, Sec. R.S. Received January 

 24, 1861. 



I have already communicated to the Royal Society the fact that 

 the introduction of an alkali, as the carbonate of soda, into the cir- 

 culation, prevents the production of diabetes in an animal after an 

 operation on the sympathetic nerve that otherwise occasions it. On 

 excising, for example, the superior cervical ganglia, or dividing the 

 ascending branches of the superior thoracic ganglia, diabetes is an 

 almost constant result in the dog. Now, I have a record of ten 

 experiments, in which, before attacking the superior cervical ganglia, 

 200 grains, or nearly so, of the crystallized carbonate of soda dis- 

 solved in a small quantity of water, were introduced into the general 

 circulation through the jugular vein. In not one of these cases was 

 there any diabetes produced. In another instance, where I employed 

 only 100 grains of the carbonate of soda, the urine soon after the 

 operation on the ganglia became decidedly, although not strongly 

 saccharine. On dividing the ascending branches of the superior 

 thoracic ganglia also, after the introduction of 200 grains of carbo- 

 nate of soda, I have failed to meet with sugar in the urine. Under 

 this injection of 200 grains of carbonate of soda into the circulation, 

 the urine becomes exceedingly copious in quantity, pale-coloured, and 

 alkaline to test-paper, and effervesces strongly on the addition of an 

 acid. 



Although the introduction of carbonate of soda into the system 

 thus counteracts the influence of certain lesions of the sympathetic in 

 leading to the production of sugar (I presume) in the liver, yet it is 

 not sufficient to prevent the appearance of sugar in the urine where 

 life has been destroyed and the circulation is kept up artificially. 

 On resorting to artificial respiration immediately after death, the 

 action of the heart being kept up, the sugar which is formed in the 

 liver, as the result of a post-mortem occurrence, escapes from it into 

 the blood, and in passing through the kidneys is eliminated by these 

 organs. In two experiments I introduced 200 grains of carbonate of 

 soda into the jugular vein previous to the destruction of life by 



