ITS FORMATION. 91 



portion of the sugar formed in the liver is carried through the 

 hepatic veins into the general mass of the blood. If our hypothesis 

 of the constitution of cholic acid be correct, we can scarcely be 

 surprised that sugar should lose 6 atoms of water in conjugating 

 with oleic acid, when we bear in mind our previous experiences 

 regarding conjugated compounds ; but, after this union, we can no 

 more detect sugar, as such, in cholic acid, than glycine in hippuric 

 acid. (Compare vol. i. p. 190.) 



C. Schmidt, although, as has been already mentioned, opposed 

 to the view that bile is formed from fat, suggests the ingenious 

 hypothesis, that in the metamorphosis of fat in the animal body, 

 sugar and cholic (Strecker's cholalic) acid are formed from the 

 neutral fats, that is to say, from the combinations of glycerine with 

 fatty acids : it is certainly a fact of some interest that, when we 

 assume that one-seventh of the hydrogen of the glycerine (C 6 H 7 O 5 ) 

 is replaced by 1 equiv. of oxygen, we obtain the formula for anhy- 

 drous grape-sugar (C 6 H 6 O 6 ), and that when we take the fatty 

 acid, C 48 H 47 O 3 , (correspond to the general formula for the 

 solid fatty acids, C n H n-1 O 3 ,) and assume that 7 of its equivalents 

 of hydrogen are replaced by oxygen, we obtain the formula for 

 cholic acid, C 48 H 39 O 9 . HO. 



In opposition to Bernard's " formation of sugar in the liver," 

 C. Schmidt remarks that we find sugar in the blood of the vena 

 cava, as well as in that of the portal vein ; and in reference to this 

 point I must observe, that I have found far more sugar in the blood 

 of the hepatic veins (as noticed in the chapter on "the blood "), 

 than in that of the portal vein or the jugular veins. In five de- 

 terminations of these varieties of blood from different horses, I 

 always found from 10 to 16 times more sugar in the solid residue 

 of the serum of the hepatic venous blood, than in the corresponding 

 residue from the portal blood; indeed, when the animals had been 

 kept for some time without food, I could find no sugar in the portal 

 blood, while it could easily be detected in the hepatic venous 

 blood, and its quantity could be determined by fermentation. There 

 can therefore be no doubt that sugar is formed in the metamor- 

 phoses which the blood undergoes in the liver. Now if we per- 

 ceive an excess of fat and a deficiency of sugar enter the liver, and 

 if we find that these substances emerge from that organ in an 

 inverse proportion, it appears obvious and mathematically certain 

 that, according to the above-mentioned hypothesis of Schmidt, the 

 fat is decomposed in the liver into cholic acid and sugar. But 

 although the above facts correspond so well with this hypothesis, 

 we must consider that a formation of sugar may likewise be due 



