Origin and Destiny of Cholesterol in the Animal Organism. 487 



Eabbit's liver gave negative results, but in the case of horse liver a marked 

 hydrolysis took place. In experiments with mixtures of blood and liver- 

 juice, both in the case of horse and cow, a more or less complete hydrolysis 

 took place, but not with serum and liver-juice. Schiiltze made no comment 

 on the constancy or otherwise of the total cholesterol on autolysis, but 

 as far as we can ascertain from his protocols, any variation between the 

 values of the fresh and autolysed tissues were within the probable errors of 

 experiment. 



Cytronberg (1912) continued the work of Schiiltze and showed that the 

 cholesterase is contained in the blood cells and not in the plasma. Howard 

 Mueller (1916) however was unable to confirm Cytronberg's work. 



In 1920, T. E. Abelous and L. C. Soula found that spleen pulp on autolysis 

 at 37° showed a marked increase in total cholesterol. Some of their results 

 are given in the following table : — 



Percentage of Cholesterol in Spleen Pidp. 



Animal. 



Fresh. 



After 24 hours 

 autolysis. 



48 hours. 



6 days. 



10 days. 



Dog 



0-231 



0-930 









Calf 



500 



-580 



-680 



0-399 



0-150 





-350 



-450 



-150 









-078 



0-459 









Cow 



0-317 



-570 



0-415 







Initially, it will be noticed, they found a rise followed on prolonged auto- 

 lysis by a fall. They also found that these effects increased with rise of 

 temperature up to 45° C. 



In one experiment the addition of a minute amount of cholalic acid pro- 

 duced a still more marked synthesis of cholesterol. 



Animal. 



Initial content, i 



48 hours. 



48 hours (with "05 grm. 

 cholalic acid added). 



Calf 



0-500 



0-68 



1 -11 



They also investigated other organs and concluded generally that nervous 

 tissue and liver also have the power of synthesising cholesterol, but in less 

 degree than spleen. Other tissues on autolysis show a destruction of 

 cholesterol. 



The authors give no details of their methods of extraction and analysis, 

 but obviously their results, if correct, are of very great importance. 



