CHAPTER VII. 

 THE LIVER. 



THE liver, which is the largest gland of the body, stands in close 

 relation to the glands mentioned in Chapter VI. The importance 

 of this organ for the assimilation of the food-stuffs and for the phys- 

 iological composition of the blood is evident from the fact that the 

 blood coming from the digestive tract, laden with absorbed bodies, must 

 circulate through the liver before it is driven by the heart through the 

 different organs and tissues. An assimilation of food-stuffs in the liver 

 has been positively shown in the first place for carbohydrates in that the 

 liver constructs a polysaccharide glycogen from hexoses, which according to 

 the needs is then again retransformed into glucose. The liver is a storage 

 organ for fats and takes up food fat as well as fat from depots (in 

 starvation) and as it seems, at least in part, prepares them so that they can 

 be further used in the animal body. 



We are not clear as to what extent an assimilation of products of pro- 

 tein digestion takes place in the liver. The subject will be discussed in detail 

 under absorption in Chapter VIII. It is claimed that the liver can serve 

 as a storage organ for proteins, 1 and it is at least certain that it retains 

 alien protein which is brought to it by the blood. 2 The retention 

 of alien protein stands probably in close relationship to the ability of 

 the liver to take up and retain foreign substances as a group from the blood. 

 This is not only true for different metals but also, as shown by several 

 investigators, 3 alkaloids which perhaps are also partly decomposed in the 

 liver. Toxins are also withheld by the liver and hence this organ has 

 a protective action against poisons. 



The formation of glycogen from glucose is one of the numerous syn- 

 theses occurring in the liver and this is no doubt the one which takes 

 place to the greatest extent. Other syntheses in the liver are, for example, 



1 See Seitz, Pfluger's Arch., Ill and Asher and Boehm, Zeitschr. f. Biol. 51. 



2 See Reach, Bioch. Zeitschr., 16 and Pacchioni and Carlini, Maly's Jahresb., 39. 



3 Roger, Action du foie sur les poisons (Paris, 1887), which quotes the works of 

 Schiff, Heger and others; also W. N. Woronzow, Maly's Jahresb., 40 and Z. Vamossy, 

 ibid., 40. 



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