596 
DE. PAVY ON STJGAE F0E:MATI0N IN THE LITEE. 
from examination on removal after death, that I was led to inquire into the substan- 
tiality of the glycogenic theory. From the experiments I had seen performed in Paris, 
and those I had made myself, 1 had regarded the blood of the right side of the heart 
as naturally strongly charged with sugar. AYhen collected vrithout the observance of 
certain precautions, from the hepatic veins, inferior cava, right auricle, or right ventricle 
of the recently killed animal, the blood, after the usual preparation for analysis with 
the sulphate of soda, gives a copious yellow or orange-yellow reduction on being tested 
with the copper solution, and this was looked upon as representing the state belonging 
to life. In February 1854 I was led in some experiments I was then conducting, to 
draw blood by a catheter from the right ventricle of the li-ving animal, and was asto- 
nished to find that the blood removed did not present what I had hitherto looked upon 
as the natural reaction of right ventricular blood, for it was scarcely at all impregnated 
with saccharine matter. In June of the same year, according to my note-book, I again 
removed blood from the right ventricle during life, and observed it to contain scarcely a 
trace of sugar; whilst, on the animal being immediately afteiwards killed, the blood 
which flowed from an incision into the right heart gave the usual reduction with 
the Barreswil solution. 
Notwithstanding thatkuch results appear now so striking, yet I did not at fii'st give to 
them their proper significance. My mind was so strongly impressed with the prevailing 
conviction that sugar was extensively formed by the hver duiing life and poui'ed into 
the circulation through the hepatic veins, that I felt inclmed to think the catheter 
had not been fairly introduced into the heart, or had come in contact with the cun-ent 
of blood descending through the superior cava, rather than discredit our previous 
notions, and no longer regard the strongly saccharine state of the blood met with so 
soon after death, as a representation of its natural or ante-mortem condition. 
This question afterwards presenting itself strongly before me, I was anxious definitely 
to decide if death really occasioned an alteration, as to the presence of sugar, in the blood 
escaping from the liver. Such an effect, as far as I am aware, had never been spoken of, 
or even hinted at by others. Several experiments were performed with the greatest care. 
Blood was withdrawn from the heart during life by the introduction of a catheter, and 
immediately afterwards the life of the animal was destroyed and blood collected by a 
free incision into the auricle or ventricle. In two cases the catheter had perforated the 
heart, and the blood that was removed during life had escaped into tlie pericardium, 
thus placing beyond all doubt, that a fair sample had been obtained. In every experi- 
ment (and the experiments were most numerous) the result of the examination of the 
blood was tlie same. The blood yielded by the right heart during life, gave only the 
merest trace of saccharine reaction, no more than was met in the arterial system; 
whilst that which was collected after death reduced abundantly the copper solution. 
In some experiments a quantitative determination of the sugar existing in the blood 
collected from the right side of the heart after death was made, and the following are 
the results that were obtained. 
