212 
SACCHARINE FUNCTION OF THE LIVER. 
blood was permitted to flow from the femoral artery directly 
into the boilins; mixture. The solution obtained from this 
blood, as in the other cases, contained sugar. Another por¬ 
tion of blood, after standing three hours, was tested in the 
same way, and, as far as could be judged by the eye, con¬ 
tained a similar proportion of sugar. 
In neither of the preceding cases was the amount of sugar 
in the blood quantitatively determined, as I had already done 
so on many previous occasions ; and I knew that in healthy 
arterial blood it varied according to the state of the digestion, 
and the kind of food, from an inappreciable quantity up to 
024 per cent.* 
Having been now satisfied that sugar is to be found in 
the blood of healthy animals at the very moment of its 
withdrawal from the circulation, even when none has been 
introduced along with the food, we next proceeded to test 
the grounds upon which it had been asserted that glu- 
cogen is not transformed into sugar in the healthy liver 
during life. 
In the paper already referred to, Dr. Pavy stated that the 
sudden abstraction of heat from the liver after its removal 
from the body checks the transformation of the sugar-forming 
material, and thereby enables us to operate on the hepatic 
substance while in the same chemical condition as during 
life. The plan he recommends is to sacrifice a dog by pith¬ 
ing, and instantly to slice off a piece of liver, and throw it 
into a freezing mixture of ice and salt. In which case, he 
says, the absence of sugar is almost complete, and thence 
concludes that the presence of sugar in the liver can no longer 
be looked upon as a (( natural ante-mortem condition;” but 
e( is in reality due to a post-ynortem occurrence.” 
In the following experiments, not only was the plan re¬ 
commended most scrupulously followed, but even the risk 
of the glucogen in the liver becoming transformed into sugar 
during the process of preparing the decoction was avoided, 
by cutting the frozen liver into thin slices, and allowing 
them, while still in that condition, to fall directly into the 
boiling mixture of acetic acid and water. The liver was in 
this way prevented from thawing until it entered a medium 
as capable of arresting the transformation of its glucogen 
into sugar as the cold. The decoction so obtained might 
therefore be presumed to contain the soluble matters as 
nearly as possible in t'ne same chemical state as they were 
in the living organ. 
* On the Physiology of S; lcchanne Urine, by Geo. Harley, M.D., ‘British 
and Foreign Medico-Chirurg ;ical Review/ July, 1857, pp. 191-204. 
