On functional derangements of the liver : being the Croonian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in March 1874 / by Charles Murchison.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On functional derangements of the liver : being the Croonian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in March 1874 / by Charles Murchison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    40/208 (page 20)
    contained '14 gr. ■ and, after passing through the liver four times, 0-176 gr. He satisfied himself also that this increase was not due merely to washing out the liver, but that there was an actual formation of urea.1 It is impor- tant to add, that the formation of urea in the liver is always greatly increased after food. Lithic acid has also been found repeatedly in the liver of man and mammalia, but always in small quantity; whereas, in birds, in which lithic acid takes the place of urea as the great eliminator of nitrogen, it also takes the place of urea in the liver, as it probably also does in the human liver under certain pathological conditions. All these observations point to the liver as being largely concerned in the destructive metamorphosis of albuminoid matter, the products of which are eliminated by the kidneys, although it is not improbable that other glandular organs, and even the corpuscles in the circula- ting blood, as believed by H. Ludwig and Fuhrer,2 may contribute to the process. As might have been expected, these oxydising and disintegrative processes, as well as those connected with the formation of bile, are attended by a production of 1 Centralblatt fur die Med. Wissenschaften, August 1870, p. 580. 2 Parkes, Lancet, 1871, vol. i. p. 470.