v INTERNAL EESTITUTIVE SECEETIONS 333 



by the portal system. The following only of Eoger's conclusions 

 need be cited : 



(a) Dogs in which the portal vein has been tied, die after 

 injection of 3 nigrms. nicotine per kilo, body-weight, while normal 

 dogs exhibit only transitory disturbances after injection of 5 nigrms. 



(&) Solutions of salts of quinine, morphine, atropine, curare, 

 alcoholic extracts of putrid liuids, when freed from potassium 

 salts and injected into the intestinal veins of rabbits, show a 

 toxicity less by half than on injection into the peripheral veins. 



(c) The liver retains ethylic alcohol, but not glycerol, acetone, 

 or inorganic substances in general. Ammonium carbonate is, 

 however, no less toxic when it passes through the liver. 



(cT) The venous blood from the systemic system and from the 

 hepatic veins of dogs is much less toxic, when defibrinated and 

 injected into the veins of rabbits, than the blood from the dogs' 

 portal vein. This higher toxicity of the portal blood seems due 

 to the products of intestinal putrefaction, since it disappears 

 after repeated disinfection of the intestine with napthaline and 

 iodoform. 



(e) The liver is capable of partially converting toxins. If 

 fresh hepatic tissue be pounded up with nicotine and then 

 extracted with dilute, boiling sulphuric acid, only a part of the 

 poison is recovered. 



(/) The liver degenerated by phosphorus poisoning, or cirrhotic 

 from ligation of the bile-duct, is no longer capable of exercising 

 any protective action against poisons. The same is true of the 

 liver of animals which have lost their glycogen after fasting. 

 In foetal development also the appearance of the protective action 

 of the liver coincides with accumulation there of glycogen. 



Verhoogen' (1893) arrived at other new data which show that 

 the depurating action of the liver does not depend solely upon its 

 position, and is not merely exercised upon the toxic substances 

 formed in the digestive apparatus. He found that on injecting 

 strong doses of morphine (5 to 6 grms. hydrochlorate) into the 

 jugular vein of dogs, and killing them at different times, the 

 alkaloid accumulated preferentially in the liver, bone marrow, and 

 spleen, whatever the interval from the diffusion of the poison. 

 This preferential accumulation of the alkaloids in these organs 

 does not depend on their content of blood, because the percentage 

 of toxin is less in the blood. 



Verhoogen obtained the same results with sodium iodide, and 

 with small amounts of other substances, within physiological 

 limits. 



To prove that the liver has the property of modifying certain 

 alkaloids, he mixed solutions of hyoscyamine with extract of 

 frogs' liver, and found that this substance lost all or almost all its 

 property of dilating the pupil. Bile has not the same property, 



