384 THE LIVER. 



The yellow or brown pigment of the liver has been little studied. DASTRE 

 and FLORESCO 1 differentiate, in vertebrates and certain invertebrates, between a 

 ferruginous pigment soluble in water, ferrine, and a pigment soluble in chloroform 

 and insoluble in water, chlorochrome. They have not isolated these pigments in a 

 pure condition. In certain invertebrates chlorophyll originating from the food also 

 occurs in the liver. 



The fat of the liver occurs partly as very small globules and partly 

 (especially in nursing children and suckling animals, as also after food 

 rich in fat) as rather large fat-drops. The occurrence of a fatty infiltra- 

 tion, i.e., a transportation of fat to the liver, may not only be produced 

 by an excess of fat in the food (NOEL-PATON), but also by a migration 

 from other parts of the body under abnormal conditions, such as poison- 

 ing with phosphorus, phlorhizin, and certain other bodies (LEO, LEBEDEFF, 

 ROSENFELD, and others 2 ) . The fatty infiltration occurring in poisoning, 

 and which is accompanied with degenerative changes in the cells, may 

 cause a diminution in the amount of protein and a rise in the water con- 

 tent. If the amount of fat in the liver is increased by an infiltration, the 

 water decreases correspondingly, while the quantity of the other solids 

 remains little changed. Changes of a kind may occur, so that, because 

 of the antipathy (ROSENFELD, BoTTAZZi 3 ) existing between glycogen 

 and fat, a liver rich in fat is habitually poor in glycogen. The reverse 

 occurs after feeding with carbohydrate-rich food, namely, the liver is 

 rich in glycogen and poor in fat. 



The composition of the liver-fat seems to vary not only in different 

 animals, but is variable with differing conditions. Thus NOEL-PATON 

 found that the liver-fat in man and several animals was poorer in oleic 

 acid and had a correspondingly higher melting-point than the fat from 

 the subcutaneous connective tissue, while ROSENFELD 4 observed the 

 opposite condition on feeding dogs with mutton-fat. 



Several investigators, HARTLEY, LEATHES and MOTTRAM suggested 

 as a difference between the fat of the liver and the connective tissues, 

 the great amount in the first of unsaturated, higher fatty acids. Accord- 

 ing to HARTLEY 5 the fat of the pig liver contains palmitic acid, stearic 



1 Arch, de Physiol. (5), 10. 



2 Noel-Paton, Journ. of Physiol., 19; Leo, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 9; Lebedeff, 

 Pfliiger's Arch., 31; Athanasiu, Pfliiger's Arch., 74; Taylor, Journ. of Exp. Med., 4; 

 Kraus u. Sommer, Hofmeister's Beitrage, 2; Rosenfeld, Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 36. 

 See also Rosenfeld, Ergebnisse der Physiologic, 1, Abt. 1, and Berl. klin. Wochenschr. 

 1904; Schwalbe, Centralbl. f. Physiol., 18, p. 319; Shibata, Bioch. Zeitschr., 37. 



3 Arch. Ital. d. Biol, 48 (1908), cited in Bioch. Centralbl., 7, p. 833. 



4 Cited by Lummert, Pfluger's Arch., 71. In regard to the liver-fat of children, 

 see Thiemich, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 26. 



6 Hartley, Journ. of Physiol., 38; Leathes and Meyer-Wedell, ibid., 38; Mottram, 

 ibid., 38. 



