(1907.] Destiny of Cholesterol in the Anvmal Organism. 213 
separated from the blood by the liver. He also stated that in cases of serious. 
structural disease of the liver, accompanied by symptoms pointing to blood 
poisoning, cholesterol accumulates in the blood, constituting a condition 
which he named cholesteremia. From his experiments he came to the 
conclusion that cholesterol is a product of the metabolism of nervous tissues, 
that it is carried from the brain by means of the blood and excreted by the 
liver through the bile, and, finally, that “we know of no function which it 
has to perform in the economy, any more than urea or any other of the 
excrementitious principles of the urine.” Flint’s methods of analysis were, 
however, open to grave objection, and he draws sweeping conclusions from 
differences so slight that had his method of estimating cholesterol been capable 
of considerable accuracy, we should have hesitated to attribute much signifi- 
eance to the figures. Flint also observead* that the cholesterol of the bile 
undergoes a modification in the intestine, and is found in the feces as 
“stercorine.’ Some support was lent to Flint’s views by the experiments of 
Picott in 1872 and Koloman Miillerf in 1873. Picot reported a fatal case of 
“orave jaundice,’ in which he found a great increase in the proportion 
of cholesterol in the blood; and Miller injected into the veins of dogs 
2°16 fluid ounces.of a solution containing 69 grains of cholesterol, made by 
rubbing cholesterol with glycerine and mixing the mass with soap and water. 
In five experiments of this kind, he produced a complete representation of 
the phenomena of “ grave jaundice.” 
How far Flint’s views obtained general credence we do not know, for he 
is rarely quoted in physiological text-books, and we are unaware of any other 
extensive series of experiments on the subject; but B. Moore, in Schafer’s 
‘Text-book of Physiology ’ (1898), states that “according to Hoppe-Seyler 
cholesterol is a cleavage product, constantly formed in the metabolic changes 
in the living cell; and for this reason it is that cholesterol is invariably 
found as a chemical constituent of both animal and vegetable cells. 
Cholesterol does not easily undergo decomposition in the animal organism 
when once formed, and is principally excreted in the higher animals in the bile. 
It is formed in increasing quantity in tissue which is undergoing pathological 
change . . . . It is probably formed most in the metabolism of nerve 
tissue, taken up by the liver cells from the blood, and passed as an excretion 
into the bile ducts. Cholesterol is purely an-excretion, and is not reabsorbed, 
but passes out of the body with the feces.” Some more recent observers 
* Ibid. | 
+ ‘Journal de l’Anatomie,’ Paris, 1872, vol. 8. 
{ “Ueber Cholesteriimie,” ‘Archiv fiir Experimentelle Pathologie und Pharmakologie,’ 
Leipzig, 1873, vol. 1, p. 213. | 
