Sanguification in the Liver. 409 



abstinence it practically disappears. It passes, not into the bile, 

 but into the hepatic veins, and the general circulation, where it 

 serves in its decomposition to generate heat, and probably to 

 hasten cell growth. In the vegetable and animal world, in the 

 germinating seed, and in cartilage, muscle and epidermis of the 

 foetus and in the amnios, glycogen and glucose are found in 

 abundance. The liver, too, the great center for the production 

 of gl3'Cogen, is relatively much larger in the 3'oung and growing 

 animal, and also in the adult animal which has great power of 

 assimilation. 



Glycogen is always present in the white blood globules so long 

 as they maintain their vitality and amoeboid movements, but 

 when the}' die, it is replaced h\ sugar (Hoppe-Seyler). The 

 red blood globules give up a ferment which rapidly transforms 

 glycogen into sugar. 



Glycogen and sugar are evidently of use in mu.scular contrac- 

 tion as they are alwaj^s diminished in the ves.sels of contracting 

 muscles (Sanderson), being converted into lactic acid (Bernard). 



Forced muscular movements soon expel glycogen from the 

 dog's liver, passing it into the blood, and there the excess of 

 glycogen dissolves the red blood globules. If glycogen is in- 

 jected into the blood, acrodextrin and hsemaglobin appear in the 

 urine (Landois). 



Ammonia carbonate and asparagin, or glycin, with a carb- 

 hydrate diet produced in rabbits a considerable increase of 

 glycogen (Rohmann). 



Poisoning by arsenic, phosphorus or antimony destroys the 

 glycogenic function of the liver, which then fails to respond even 

 to diabetic puncture of the medulla. 



There are important changes effected in the blood globules in 

 passing through the liver. The leucocytes are increa.sed, the 

 hepatic veins containing 5 or even 10 times as many as the portal 

 vein (Bernard, Lehmann, McDonald). Their ratio to the red 

 globules is in the portal vein 1:524 and in the hepatic veins 1:136 

 (Hirt). "XXx^ red globnles undergo marked changes, having, in 

 the hepatic veins, a smaller size, sharper outlines, le.ss flattening 

 in the disc, a habit of massing together irregularly in place of 

 adhering in rouleaux, and they dissolve less readily in water. 



