432 
THE LIVER AND ITS SECRETIONS. 
And iron, is it not reasonable to suppose that some of this may 
be pabulum for the nerves ? 
In the vetebrata, the peculiar sugar which is found in the 
blood of the hepatic vein, is nearly always detected in the 
cellular parenchyma, and the cells are found to be loaded with 
fat ; those near the margin of the lobules being especially 
prone to this accumulation. I have endeavoured to prove by 
experiments that this sugar is formed by the union of the bile 
with aliment, and that it is eliminated in the process of the 
secretion of the phosphoretted fat, or perhaps the entire 
nerve-matter, by the cells of the parenchyma of the liver. 
I took a solution of albumen (the white of egg diffused in 
four volumes of water) with about a fourth part as much 
oil, the same quantity of solution of phosphate of soda, and 
also of perfectly fresh ox-bile, and digested them together over 
a water-bath at 98° Fah. for half an hour. I then filtered the 
mixture, and tested it with Trommer’s, Maumene’s, and 
Moore’s tests, and found sugar by all of them. I then tested 
each of the ingredients separately, and could not detect any 
sugar, as was also the case with any compound of two or 
three of them. But I found that the more phosphate I used 
in the entire mixture, up to a certain quantity, the more 
sugar I obtained. 
I will conclude by stating, as concisely as I am able, the 
manner in which I believe this formation of nerve-matter is 
carried on in the animal. The bile I believe is principally 
secreted from the capillaries of the hepatic artery by the cells 
lining the biliary ducts, and is poured out into the intestine, 
where it mixes with the aliment, and is aided perhaps by the 
pancreatic juice in emulsifying that portion of the chyme 
which is taken up by the capillaries of the walls of the intes- 
tines, or if by the lacteals, to be given up to the capillaries in 
the mesenteric glands, to be brought back into the liver by 
the vena porta (for I do not think that any of the bile can be 
detected in the thoracic duct in a healthy animal), forming 
by its union with the blood in that vein the proper pabulum 
for the secreting cells of the parenchyma, which pabulum I 
believe to consist of nerve-matter, or at least phosphoretted 
fat, which, after secretion, is carried by the red corpuscles 
(and Dr. Carpenter states that red corpuscles have been 
found in the liver) into the system; the sugar at the same 
time being eliminated into the cellular parenchyma, to be 
conveyed by the hepatic vein into the system, to be consumed 
in the lungs, while the non-phosphoretted fat is also carried 
in the serum to be consumed or deposited as nature requires. 
It has been remarked that the quantities of sugar and free fat 
