536 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



is probable. Fat, however, certainly exists in them, even when it is not 

 microscopically demonstrable, as the collective analyses of the liver show. 

 Probably, also, the sugar which recent researches have demonstrated in 

 the liver will be found to exist in the parenchyma; in the cells, there- 

 fore, and not in the blood only. 



As the principal mass of the liver is formed by the hepatic cells, I 

 here add the results of one of the many analyses of the liver by Von 

 Bibra (" Chem. Fragmente liber die Leber und Galle," Braunschweig, 

 1849). He found, in 100 parts of the substance of the liver of a young 

 man who died suddenly 



Protein substance, insoluble in water, ..... 9'44 



Albumen, 2'40 



Collagenous substance, 3-37 



Extractive matter, 6'07 



Fat, 2-50 



Water, . .76-17 



100-00 



One hundred parts of the water yielded 3-99 of ash, containing espe- 

 cially phosphate of potassa, then phosphate of lime, some silica and iron, 

 and chloride of sodium. The protein substance, insoluble in water, pro- 

 ceeds from the nuclei and membranes of the hepatic cells and from the 

 contents to which we have referred. The albumen partly proceeds from 

 the blood, but certainly from the cells also. Von Bibra found neither 

 kreatin nor kreatinin in the extractive matters ; the coloring matter 

 which they contained did not present the same reaction as that of the 

 bile, whence Von Bibra draws the conclusion that this ingredient does 

 not exist as such in the cells. Finally, I may advert to the acid reac- 

 tion of the parenchyma of fresh liver, which I discovered (Art. "Spleen," 

 in Todd's Cyclopaedia), and which, in this case, is even more remarkable 

 than in the spleen. Von Bibra also found the watery extract of the 

 Ox's liver to have an acid reaction (1. <?., p. 33), and has demonstrated 

 the existence of lactic acid in it. 



There is no subject of minute anatomy upon which opinions are so 

 various, at the present time, as upon the structure of the secreting 

 parenchyma of the liver ; and yet, with the views which have been ex- 

 pressed in the preceding section, the only question that can arise is, 

 whether the finest biliary ducts are intercellular spaces, canalicular 

 spaces between the hepatic cells, as Henle and Gerlach consider, or 

 whether they consist of the columns of hepatic cells surrounded by 

 membrance proprice. I have endeavored to show, in my " Mikr. Anat." 

 II. p. 221, that these notions are untenable, and that nothing remains 

 but to accept the view which has been offered, however paradoxical, as 

 the only one which at all corresponds with nature.* 



* [In animals the structure of the secreting parenchyma of the liver differs in many respects 



