The physiology of the carbohydrates : an epicriticism / by F.W. Pavy.

  • Pavy, F. W. (Frederick William), 1829-1911.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology of the carbohydrates : an epicriticism / by F.W. Pavy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    71/172 (page 47)
    says, The flow of blood through the liver is so enormously rapid that a very small increase in the percentage amount of sugar would indicate an enormous production in the twenty-four hours ; and after alluding to the conclusion I have drawn from analyses of the blood on the right side of the heart and the portal vein, proceeds : Now this method of experiment is not in any way calculated to elucidate the question. In the first place, the analysis of the heart-blood and of the portal blood were not made at the same time, or even in the same animal. Secondly, the animal was dead; and Dr. Pavy has insisted that in the case of the liver post-mortem changes commence at once. Such changes may also occur in the blood. That they do occur later is ad- mitted by Dr. Pavy himself. And lastly, the heart blood is the blood from the liver enormously diluted with blood from the rest of the body; and hence if the blood from the rest of the body is poor in sugar any increase in the sugar in the blood from the liver will not be manifested.'1 Professor Michael Foster a long time ago broached the view that the amount of sugar escaping from the liver might be so small as to fall within the limits of error of analysis; and thus through the constancy and rapidity of the flow of blood a considerable quantity might be carried away in the course of the twenty-four hours without showing itself in a dis- tinctly manifest form. I know this argument has had great weight with physiologists. It is not so forcible now as when first propounded, owing to the