ORIGIN OF SUGAR IN THE LIVER. 
291 
creatic juice cannot have as its principal function the trans- 
formation of starch into sugar. One of the functions, he con- 
siders to be the promotion of the constant interchange of fluids 
within the body, in the same manner as Bidder and Schmidt 
have thought it probable concerning the saliva, and also Grune- 
wald and Shroeder respecting the gastric juice. It further 
appears to him that an intimate connection exists between the 
secretion of the stomach and that of the pancreas — namely, 
that the hydrochloric acid secreted by the former is, after hav- 
ing performed its part, neutralized by the soda of the latter, thus 
again forming the chloride of sodium previously disunited by 
the process of secretion. In favour of this theory Kroeger 
observes that the hydrochloric acid contained in 1 kilogramme 
of the gastric juice, secreted by the dog in twenty-four hours, 
amounts to 0*305 grammes, while the soda contained in the 
pancreatic juice secreted in twenty-four hours is calculated at 
0*237 grammes, i. e., very nearly the equivalent (0*259)> corres- 
ponding to 0*305 grammes of hydrochloric acid. 
ON THE ORIGIN OE SUGAR IN THE LEVER, AND ON THE 
NORMAL EXISTENCE OE SUGAR IN THE BLOOD. 
By M. L. Figuier. 
(. Abridged from an article in the f Chemist ?) 
M. Claude Bernard demonstrated, for the first time, 
in 1 848, that the liver of man and animals contains a certain 
quantity of glucose. Pursuing the study of this fact, un- 
known until our time, this physiologist was led to consider 
the liver as the organ producing sugar in animals. According 
to him, the liver would possess not only the function of 
secreting the bile, but also that of producing sugar, a sub- 
stance destined afterwards to contribute to the maintenance 
of the respiration. The same experimentalist applied himself 
to demonstrating that the sugar which exists in the liver 
does not necessarily arise from the saccharine or feculent 
aliments introduced into the stomach, but that it is formed 
in the animal organism itself, independently of all vegetable 
alimentation. Finally, having attentively studied the cha- 
racters of the new function which he attributes to the liver, 
and which he designates under the name of glucogenia, M. 
Bernard has ascertained that the secretion of sugar in the 
liver coincides with the digestive period. It is what the 
