FUNCTIONS OF THE LIVER. 269 



quantity of sugar in the liver varies according to the circum- 

 stances under which it is examined ; if, immediately after the 

 death of the animal, it is always found to contain less sugar 

 than on the following day ; this is because the glycogenous 

 matter is changed into sugar after death (Cl. Bernard, 1855, 

 1859). Schiff, on meeting with this glycogenous matter, 

 gave it the name of inuline, wrongly supposing it to resem- 

 ble a vegetable starch, although it has neither the same 

 microscopical features nor the same reactions. Rouget gave 

 this substance the name of zoamyline (or animal starch). 



Cl. Bernard then attached great importance to the glyco- 

 genic function of the liver, and he considered sugar as an 

 essential element in the composition of those fluids in which 

 cells are developed : he believed that he saw cases of spon- 

 taneous generation in saccharine fluids; he looked upon 

 sugar as the most indispensable principle of the life of the 

 organic elements ; he even went so far as to attribute the 

 almost certain death of those animals, whose two pneumo- 

 gastric nerves have been cut, to the fact that by this means 

 the glycogenic functions of the liver are arrested. 



These exaggerations produced a strong reaction, and the 

 attacks made upon the theory of glycogeny brought about 

 the discovery of some important facts. The theory was 

 defended by Cl. Bernard, Lehmann, and Poggiale, and dis- 

 puted principally by Figuier, Colin, Chauveau, and Sanson. 

 Sanson proved that meat, muscular flesh, contains a saccha- 

 rine substance, and that an extraordinary quantity of this 

 substance is produced in the animals experimented upon, by 

 feeding them with butcher's meat ; this muscular sugar is, 

 however, dextrine and has no connection with the glyco- 

 genous substance of the liver. Rouget showed that this 

 glycogenous matter, or zoamyUne, is not at all peculiar to the 

 hepatic tissue ; that it represents a collateral product of the 

 nutrition of all the tissues, and is chiefly found in large quanti- 

 ties in the fcetus and in young subjects: first, in the bone-car- 

 tilages of the members; then in the muscles (the muscular 

 plasma only) ; then in all the epitheliums, from the epithelium 

 of the placenta, between the foetal and the maternal organism, 

 to the epidermis, the pulmonary vesicles, and the glands of 

 Lieberkuhn, and, finally, to the epithelium of the vagina, 

 where it is found even in the adult female. He considers 

 glycogeny as a general feature of the life of the tissues, and 

 its exaggeration as an accidental circumstance in the nutrition 

 of the liver. 



