80 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
A glance at this table shows that most of the succulent organs 
and tissues yield an extract which rapidly converts starch into 
sugar ; while the drier tissues, such as bone, cartilage, etc., yield 
extracts which have no such power. In comparing the various 
tissues obtained from the rabbit, child, and adult, there is, on the 
whole, a similarity in their action. 
Many of the tissues have an X marked opposite. These tissue 
extracts had the power of reducing Fehling themselves. Many 
tissues containing glycogen yield a sugar after their death. This 
fact may account for these extracts reducing Fehling, hut in most 
cases the reduction of Fehling by the extract itself was slight 
as compared with the reduction by the starch solution previously 
acted on by the extract. 
The following table shows the comparison of results obtained in 
the conversion of starch into sugar by the pathological tissues : — 
Abundant Conversion, Blood 
Liver 
Spleeii* 18 ^ Eclamptic Tissues. 
Brain j 
Kidneys J 
Considerable Conversion, 
Distinct Conversion, Carcinoma of Skin. 
Scirrhus of Breast. 
Angeio-sarcoma of Leg. 
Slight Conversion, Sarcoma of Face. 
Varicose Veins. 
Tubercular Sputum. 
No Reaction, 
All the pathological extracts have the power of converting 
starch into sugar. Cancers and sarcomas do this markedly, while 
the various extracts of tissues that were examined from the patient 
who suffered and died from eclampsia have a very powerful action 
in this respect. One cannot say definitely that cancerous and 
sarcomatous tumours yield extracts which invariably convert 
starch into sugar, as a sufficient number have not been examined. 
The probability is, however, that this is so ; and, moreover, soft or 
medullary carcinomata, and soft, round, or giant-celled sarcomata 
will probably have a greater power in causing this conversion than 
the hard scirrhus cancer or spindle-celled sarcoma. 
Why should the tissues in eclampsia yield extracts which have 
such a powerful action in the conversion of starch ? It is not that 
they contain more glycogen, as the extract itself would have in 
