608 
DE. PAVT ON SrOAE EOEMATION IN THE LITEE. 
broken down by slight pressure between the fingers. I have seen it indeed so softened 
as to be almost pulpy, scarcely holding together when taken up by a pair of forceps. 
1 have made some analyses to show the relation that exists, in the transformation of 
amyloid substance into sugar in the liver after death, between the loss of the one and 
the gain of the other — how much sugar is formed for the hepatine that disappears. 
In the first three experiments, a part of the liver was instantly after deatli thrown into 
a freezing mixture, whilst the other was allowed to remain in the animal for some 
minutes. An analysis of the two specimens gave me the quantity of amyloid substance 
lost in the portion where the temperature was kept up, and likewise the amount of 
sugar that was formed. In the fourth, the liver was simply removed from the animal 
and examined at once, and then again in twenty-four hours’ time. 
No. 1 . . 
Amount of amyloid 
substance lost, 
per cent. 
. . 2-20 
Amount of 
sugar gained, 
per cent. 
1-57 
Eelation of gain of sugar 
to loss of amyloid substance, 
1 to 1-40 
No. 2 . . 
. . 7-04 
4-25 
1 to I'Go 
No. 3 . . 
. . 3-12 
2-05 
1 to 1‘52 
No. 4 . . 
. . 1-82 
1-12 
1 to 1-62 
Looking at the medium of these results, we get for the production of one part of 
sugar a loss of 1‘54 of amyloid substance. 
The following is a summary of the conclusions arrived at in this communication : — 
The deductions drawn from an examination of the blood after death, without the 
observance of certain precautions, are fallacious. Blood collected ordinarily from the 
right side of the heart, after the destruction of life in a healthy animal, is strongly 
charged with sugar. This is not the condition naturally belonging to life ; for if blood 
be drawn through a catheter from the right ventricle of a Ihing animal which has 
remained in a quiescent state during the operation, it gives only a mere trace of the 
presence of sugar. 
On suddenly destroying life, and instantly collecting the blood contained in the right 
side of the heart, it is found as free from sugar as if it had been collected during life. 
From some recent carefully conducted experiments, the blood of the right side of the 
heart of an animal feeder is not distinguishable, as regards the amount of sugar present, 
from the blood of the portal vein. 
Obstruction of the breathing determines an unnatural increase of sugar in the circula- 
tion, and a strongly diabetic state of the urine may be induced in this Avay. 
The physiological or ante-mortem state of the liA’er, like that of the blood flowing from 
it, has been erroneously inferred, from the post-mortem condition that is presented. The 
liver at the rnoment of death is free, or almost completely free, from sugar, and the 
saccharine state Avhich has been hitherto considered as belonging to it naturally during 
life, is in reality due to an easily recognizable chemical transformation which takes place 
with an astonishing rapidity after death. 
