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384 THE LIVER.
The yellow or brown pigment of the liver has been little studied. Dastre
and Floresco l
differentiate, in vertebrates and certain invertebrates, between a
ferruginous pigment soluble in water, ferrine, and a pigment soluble in chloroform
and insoluble in water, chlorochrome. They have not isolated these pigments in a
pure condition. In certain invertebrates chlorophyll originating from the food also
occurs in the liver.
The fat of the liver occurs partly as very small globules and partly
(especially in nursing children and suckling animals, as also after food
rich in fat) as rather large fat-drops. The occurrence of a fatty infiltra-
tion, i.e., a transportation of fat to the liver, may not only be produced
by an excess of fat in the food (Noel-Paton), but also by a migration
from other parts of the body under abnormal conditions, such as poison-
ing with phosphorus, phlorhizin, and certain other bodies (Leo, Lebedeff,
Rosenfeld, and others 2
). The fatty infiltration occurring in poisoning,
and which is accompanied with degenerative changes in the cells, may
cause a diminution in the amount of protein and a rise in the water con-
tent. If the amount of fat in the liver is increased by an infiltration, the
water decreases correspondingly, while the quantity of the other solids
remains little changed. Changes of a kind may occur, so that, because
of the antipathy (Rosenfeld, Bottazzi3
) existing between glycogen
and fat, a liver rich in fat is habitually poor in glycogen. The reverse
occurs after feeding with carbohydrate-rich food, namely, the liver is
rich in glycogen and poor in fat.
The composition of the liver-fat seems to vary not only in different
animals, but is variable with differing conditions. Thus Noel-Paton
found that the liver-fat in man and several animals was poorer in oleic
acid and had a correspondingly higher melting-point than the fat from
the subcutaneous connective tissue, while Rosenfeld 4
observed the
opposite condition on feeding dogs with mutton-fat.
Several investigators, Hartley, Leathes and Mottram suggested
as a difference between the fat of the liver and the connective tissues,
the great amount in the first of unsaturated, higher fatty acids. Accord-
ing to Hartley 5
the fat of the pig liver contains palmitic acid, stearic
1
Arch, de Physiol. (5), 10.
2
Noel-Paton, Journ. of Physiol., 19; Leo, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 9; Lebedeff,
PfluRer’s Arch., 31; Athanasiu, Pfliiger’s Arch., 74; Taylor, Journ. of Exp. Med., 4;
Kraus u. Sommer, Hofmeister’s Beitrage, 2; Rosenfeld, Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 36.
See also Rosenfeld, Erfiebnisse der Physiologie, 1, Abt. 1, and Berl. klin. Wochenschr.
1904; Schwalbe, Centralbl. f. Physiol., 18, p. 319; Shibata, Bioch. Zeitschr., 37.
3
Arch. Ital. d. Biol., 48 (1908), cited in Bioch. Centralbl., 7, p. 833.
* Cited by Lummert, Pfluger’s Arch., 71. In regard to the liver-fat of children,
see Thiemich, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 26.
6
Hartley, Journ. of Physiol., 38; Leathes and Meyer-Wedell, ibid., 38; Mottram,,
ibid., 38.
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