ACUTE YELLOW ATROPHY OF THE LI] Eli 545 



liver shows a diniimitioii of the hexone bases as a whole, the arginiue 

 being especially reduced; but no such change was found by him in 

 acute yellow atrophy, nor by Wells in chloroform necrosis. Jack- 

 son and Pearce ^ found an increase in the diaraino nitrogen with ex- 

 tensive necrosis of the liver in dogs and liorses. Wohlgemuth '■* found 

 arginine in the urine in phosphoiiis poisoning. The lecithin of the 

 liver is also decreased (Heffter^° and Wells), and the increase in 

 P0O3 observed in the urine presumably comes partly from this source ; 

 cholesterol is unchanged. Beebe ^^ found the pentose of the liver not 

 greatly altered from the normal relations. The typical idiopathic 

 atrophied liver shows little or no inorease in fat, either chemically or 

 microscopically, whereas there is considerable replacement of the lost 

 liver substance by water, as shown in the following table: 



Fat-free 

 Dried 

 "Water Fat Substance 



Normal liver (Quincke) 76.1 3.0 20.9 



Normal liver (Wells) 77.6 5.0 17.4 



Acute atrophy (Perls) 81.6 8.7 9.7 



Acute atrophy (Perls) 76.0 7.6 15.5 



Acute atrophy (v. Starck) 80.5 4.2 15.5 



Acute atrophy (Taylor) 85.8 2.0 12.2 



Acute atrophv (Wakeman) 79.3 . . . . 



Acute atrophy (Wells) 83.8 2.5 13.7 



Acute atrophy (Voegtlin) 78.0 6.6 15.4 



Phosphorus poisoning (v. Starck) 60.0 29.8 10.0 



Fatty degeneration (v. Starck) 64.0 25.0 11.0 



Chloroform necrosis (Wells) 72.4 8.8 18.8 



Similar results have been obtained frequently by other observers. Tay- 

 lor estimating that in his ease about three-fourths of the liver paren- 

 chyma had disappeared. The yellow color of the liver tissue charac- 

 teristic of this condition seems to be due to bilirubin rather than to 

 fat, because as soon as the tissues are put into oxidizing agents {e. g., 

 dichromate hardening fluids) they turn grass-green from the oxida- 

 tion of the bilirubin into biliverdin. There seems to be a marked in- 

 crease in free fatty acids, probably the unsaturated higher fatty 

 acids, which are strongly hemolytic.^" 



Jacoby ^^ found that the livers from phosphorus-poisoned dogs 

 underwent autolysis with greater rapidity than normal livers, which 

 was attributed to increased activity or amount of the autolytic en- 

 zymes, although addition of phosphorus to a solution containing liver 

 feraients was not found to increase their activity. The aldehydase 

 was not found decreased, and tyrosinase could not be demonstrated, 



s Jour. Exper. Med., 1907 (9), 520. 



9 Zeit. physiol. Chem., 1905 (44), 74. 



10 Arch. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 1891 (28), 97. 



11 Amer. Jour, of Physiol., 1905 (14), 237. 

 i2Joannovics and Pick, Berl. klin. Woch., 1910 (47), 928. 



13 Zeit. physiol. Chem.. 1900 (30), 174; see also Porges and Pribram, Arch, 

 exp. Path. u. Pharm., 1908 (59), 20. 

 35 



