The Liver as a Destination and Destroyer of Poisons. 423 



normal antiseptic (the bile acids) and favors septic fermentation 

 and the inhibition of duodenal digestion and absorption. 

 Another factor is found in the ptomaines and toxins absorbed 

 from the alimentary canal and arrested in the liver. These de- 

 bilitate the liver cells, impair the liver functions and lay the gland 

 open to bacteridian infection. The bile in such a case is trans- 

 formed into a pale or yellow, viscid liquid, with more or less dark 

 colored granular debris, and this proves a favorable culture ground 

 for bacteria especially the golden staphylococcus and the bacterium 

 coli commune. With septic condition of the liver the usual result 

 of ligature of the bile duct is a peri — and intra-lobular sclerosis 

 and the formation of minute biliary abscesses. In the absence 

 of sepsis, ligature of the biliary duct, produces — not abscess but — 

 necrobiosis, preceded by interlobular connective tissue hyperpla- 

 sia, and granular or fatty degeneration of the hepatic cells. 

 (Charcot, Legg, Lahousse, Dupre). 



THE LIVER AS A DESTINATION AND DESTROYER 



OF POISONS. 



The liver in the mature animal, being the one destination of 

 the blood carried in the portal vein, necessarily becomes the 

 recipient of all medicinal and poisonous agents absorbed by the 

 capillaries and venous radicals of the stomach and intestines. 

 This organ retains and lays up for a time the heavier metals, such 

 as the salts of copper and iron, the iodides and bromides, the 

 vegetable alkaloids such as nicotine, quinine, morphia, and curare, 

 the toxic elements of the bile, the ptomaines and toxins produced 

 by gastric and intestinal fermentations, indol, phenol, etc. Some 

 agents it transforms, as peptones (which it renders non-poison- 

 ous), casein, the carbonate of ammonia and its salts with vegeta- 

 ble acids, also indol and phenol, which it combines with sulphuric 

 acid as indyxol and phenyl sulphate, thus rendering them much 

 less toxic. The destructions or new combinations established in 

 the cases of the ptomaines and toxins may explain why such 

 agents are usually much less poisonous when taken by the stomach 



