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442 THE LIVER.
to detect bile-pigments in the blood-serum five hours after tying the
biliary passages alone, while after tying all the vessels of the liver and also
the biliary passages, no bile-pigments could be detected either in the
blood or the tissues of the animal, which was killed 10-24 hours after
the operation. Minkowski and Naunyn 1
also found that poisoning
with arseniureted hydrogen produces a liberal formation of bile-pig-
ments, and the secretion, after a short time, of a urine rich in biliverdin
in previously healthy geese. In geese with extirpated livers this does
not occur.
With experiments on dogs, Whipple and Hooper 2
found after intra-
venous injection of blood-corpuscles of the same animal hsemolyzed
with water, that a transformation of the haemoglobin into bile-pigments
occurred with the same rapidity in normal animals as with animals with
Eck fistulas, or with such a fistula and the hepatic artery ligatured. The
formation of bile-pigments also occurred on removing the liver, spleen
and abdomen from the circulation, as well as by circulation through the
head and thorax. A transformation of haemoglobin into bile-pigments,
at least in dogs, can take place easily without the medium of the liver
and these experimenters suggest the possibility that the endothelial
cells are here active.
No such experiments can be carried out on mammalia, as they do
not live long enough after the operation; still there is no doubt that this
organ is the chief seat of the formation of bile-pigments under physiolog-
ical conditions.
In regard to the materials from which the bile-acids are produced,
it may be said with certainty that the two components, glycocoll and
taurine, which are both nitrogenized, are formed from the protein bodies.
The close relation of taurine to the cystine group of the protein mole-
cule has been especially shown by the investigations of Freidmann,
(see Chapter III), and recently v. Bergmann 3
has shown by feeding
dogs with sodium cholate and cystine that the animal body can trans-
form cystine into taurine, and that the taurine of the bile originates
from the proteins of the food. In regard to the origin of the non-nitro-
genized cholic acid, which was formally considered as originating from
the fats, nothing is positively known; to all appearances it is from
proteins.
The blood-coloring matters are considered as the mother-substances
of the bile-pigments. If the identity of haematoidin and bilirubin was
1
Stern, Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 19; Minkowski and Naunyn, ibid., 21.
2
Journ. of exp. Med., 17.
1
Hofmeister’s Beitrage, 4. See also Wohlgemuth, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 40.
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