sg 
474 General Notes. f [ May, | 
ing is reduced to a condition suitable for combustion.” I do not 
pretend to put my results, founded entirely on general reasoning, 
on the same footing as the careful researches and experiments of 
Professor Seegen, but it seems to me so explicit a statement de- 
serves recognition. 
gain Professor Seegen draws attention to the fact that fasting 
animals still continue to make liver-sugar and that therefore this 
fungtion is continuous. In the same paper I state that waste tis- 
sues being albuminoid are undoubtedly eliminated in the same 
way, i. e., by splitting in the liver into a carbo-hydrate which is 
burned and an incombustible nitrogenous residue to be eliminated 
mostly by the kidneys. The researches of Schiff? demonstrate 
that waste tissue undergo some important, yea necessary, change 
in the liver, but as to the nature of the change he says nothing. 
If the disposal of waste is connected with sugar making, as I 
affirm, this fact entirely explains the continuity of the function. 
Again Professor Seegen says: “ The formation of peptones (at 
least in carnivores not growing) is mostly to form sugar.” I say, 
“The whole albuminoid-excess is split into sugar to be burned 
for vital force and vital heat and an incombustible residue to be 
otherwise eliminated, 2. e., the whole albuminoid-excess 1s utilized 
as sugar.” i 
As to the experiments of Professor Seegen and others soa 
that with carbo-hydrate diet the sugar in the portal vein Is tess 
than in hepatic vein, I confess they are wholly unintelligible ye 
me. What becomes of the sugar which is absorbed in suc 
large quantities? Is it not possible that it may be present a 
some form which does not respond to the ordinary. tests tor 
glucose ? 
The final conclusion of Professor Seegen that glycogen ga 
present in the liver zs not the source of liver-sugar, must be ae 
lished on very firm basis before it will be accepted by physio 
sts.— Joseph Le Conte. 
BERKELEY, CAL., April 8, 1886. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
~ Meynert’s Psycuratry,? VoL. I—This volume of 285 ag a 
= largely devoted to the gross and minute anatomy of the res 
_ Besides the appendix on the mechanism of expression, “Sate 
short chapter on the nutrition of the brain, two-thirds of ae hi 
are devoted to anatomy and one-third to the physiology ° H's 
_ important organ. The work represents the results of Mom 
_ reséarches up to 1884, and is of first-class value as embracing 
1 Arch. des Sciences, Vol. 58, p. 203, 1877. . 
2 Psychiatry, a clinical treatise on diseases of the Fore-brain. By + 
~ nert, M.D., professor of nervous diseases and chief of psychiatric clini 
_ Translated by B. Sachs, M.D. Vol.1. New York, G, P. Putnam s 
1885. : 
Theodor Mey- 
B c of Vienna. 
Sons. 8v0, 
