On Eck's fishila. 



The great size of the liver in comparison with the other glands of the 

 body, and the fact that all the blood from the gastro-intestinal tract 

 must perfuse the liver before being poured into the systemic circulation, 

 indicate that this organ must be of primary importance in the animal 

 economy. The absolute exclusion of the liver from the circulation is 

 impossible unless it be excised, an operation which is followed by such a 

 degree of shock that any observations made on the animal afterwards 

 are of little value, and are moreover soon cut short by its death. On the 

 other hand, the partial removal of the liver from the circulation, by 

 diverting the portal blood into the inferior vena cava, does not 

 immediately affect the animal, so that it can be kept alive for some time 

 and observations made on its metabolism. It is with some of the results 

 of this latter operation on dogs that the present paper deals. 



The first successful operation of this nature was performed on a dog 

 in 1877 by Dr. von Eck (i) of St. Petersburg. His object in doing the 

 operation was to see whether it might not be possible, in this way, to 

 relieve the congestion of the liver which occurs in cirrhosis of the liver. 

 Of a total of eight dogs, only one survived the operation more than a 

 few days, sepsis and thrombosis being the cause of death of the others. 

 One dog, however, lived two-and-a-half months, and then escaped from 

 the laboratory. No accurate observations were made on its metabolism. 

 A few years later Stolnikow (2) also performed the operation successfully 

 on dogs, but otherwise added nothing to Eck's findings. 



Although, from these observations, no doubt could exist that the 

 establishment of a porto-systemic fistula is not immediately fatal, it yet 

 remained undecided whether there is any ultimate effect on the animal, 

 and whether its metabolism is affected. To study these questions, Pawlow 

 and Massen (3) performed the operation on a large series of dogs, taking 

 every possible precaution to prevent sepsis, and they elaborated a 



(267) 



