20 
DR. C. H. JONES ON THE STRUCTURE, DEVELOPxMENT 
in its structure. (2.) These cells are very often arranged in tolerably perfect rows 
radiating from the centres of the lobules, but this disposition is often exchanged for 
a plexiform or quite irregular one. ( 3 .) The marginal cells of the lobules, i.e. the 
ends of the rows, are especially prone to be the seat of oily accumulation. ( 4 .) There 
is no arrangement of the cells comparable to those of the renal tubuli ; they form rows, 
but not in any way the parietes of a tubular passage. ( 5 .) There is no basement 
membrane to be seen in the lobules, the cells therefore lie in the closest relation to 
the blood in the capillaries. (6.) Young cells are frequently seen forming in the 
parenchyma, by collection of granulous matter round free nuclei ; these do not seem 
to form at any particular part more than at another ; they are not found solely in the 
centres of the lobules, i. e. at the commencements of the series. (7.) The cells* have in 
many animals a great affinity for oil, and appropriate it so as to gorge themselves when 
it exists in any quantity in the blood. (8.) Sugar must doubtless also exist in the 
cells, as they constitute a far greater part of the parenchyma than the diffused gra- 
nulous plasma ; according to some observations I have made its amount is in inverse 
ratio to that of the oil present, for in fatty livers of foetal animals, fish, and diseased 
persons, I have failed to detect by Trommer’s test the presence of sugar, which in 
healthy ones is always abundantly manifest. ( 9 .) Bile, or at least the colouring prin- 
ciple of bile, often occurs in the cells, especially in various diseased conditions, but is 
not proved to exist in perfectly normal states. It thus appears that the hepatic cells 
differ in several particulars from the cells of other glands; they are more perfectly 
formed, of more permanent aspect ; they are not disposed as a lining to tubes of 
homogeneous membrane, but in series which tend more or less to plexiformity, and 
are apparently distant from any free surface open to the exterior. I consider them, 
therefore, to form a parenchyma and not an epithelium. Their peculiarly intimate 
relation to the blood capillaries seems to indicate, as I suggested in my former paper, 
that they serve as repositories for certain matters absorbed by the blood from the 
chyme as it passes over the intestinal surface; these matters are however, doubtless, 
altered by the recipient cells and converted into sugar, perhaps also into oil or biliary 
matter. 
It is clearly proved that sugar is made in the liver, that it is not found in the blood 
entering the liver by the vena porta, but that it exists in very large quantity in the 
blood passing out by the hepatic vein ; the substance also of the liver, the parenchyma, 
contains abundance of sugar, as I have repeatedly observed. These facts show that 
one, and probably the chief function, of the hepatic cells is to elaborate sugar from 
the materials intended to be employed in respiration ; and that having done so, they 
allow this product to return into the circulating fluid, where it perhaps undergoes 
further changes before it terminates in carbonic acid. The parenchyma of the liver 
thus resembles closely a ductless gland, such as the suprarenal capsule, allowing its 
* To this the liver of a fatted pig presents a remarkable exception ; its cells seem inapt to receive the oil 
which so accumulates in the subcutaneous tissue. 
