Experimental researches into a new excretory function of the liver : consisting in the removal of cholesterine from the blood, and its discharge from the body in the form of stercorine (the seroline of Boudet) / by Austin Flint, Jr. ; illustrated by three plates containing fifteen figures.

  • Flint, Austin, 1836-1915.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental researches into a new excretory function of the liver : consisting in the removal of cholesterine from the blood, and its discharge from the body in the form of stercorine (the seroline of Boudet) / by Austin Flint, Jr. ; illustrated by three plates containing fifteen figures. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    cessful, no animal surviving the operation more than three days. The experiments were discontinued at that time, but were renewed in the winter of 1861-62 at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. After a number of trials which were no more successful than those made the previous win- ter, I succeeded in performing the operation with considerable rapidity and with very little disturbance of the abdominal organs, and in one animal the success was complete. Exp. 1. The operation was performed by making an incision into the abdomen in the median line just below the ensiform cartilage, about three inches in length. The edge of the liver was carefully raised, the bile duct isolated, and two ligatures applied, one next the duodenum and the other near the junction of the ductus choledochus with the cystic duct, the inter- mediate portion being excised. The fundus of the gall-bladder was then drawn to the upper part of the wound, an incision made in it of about an inch in length, the bile evacuated, and the edges attached to the skin by points of the interrupted suture. The wound was then carefully closed around the opening into the gall-bladder. This is nearly the proceeding recommended by Blondlot, who prefers, however, to operate while the animal is fasting, as the gall-bladder is then distended and can be more easily found. I have preferred to operate after feeding, when the gall-bladder is comparatively empty, as there is no great difficulty in finding it, and in evacuating its contents less bile is apt to find its way into the peritoneal cavity, which is one of the causes of the intense peritonitis which follows this operation. The animal ate well the day after the operation, the bile flowed freely from the fistula and was entirely cut off from the intestine, as shown by post-mortem examination. No symptoms supervened except those pro- duced by the diversion of the bile from its normal course. This operation was performed on the 15th of November, 1861, and the animal lived thirty- eight days. In no observation that I have found recorded has the animal been so free from inflammation consequent upon so serious an operation; and this seemed a most favourable opportunity of determining whether an animal coidd live with the bile shut off from the intestinal tube and discharged by a fistula. In this case the animal gradually lost flesh and strength, his appetite becoming voracious, until finally he died of inanition; the obser- vation agreeing in every important particular with the experiments of Schwann, and Bidder and Schmidt. Exp. 2. This experiment was undertaken to ascertain, if possible, the entire quantity of bile secreted in the twenty-four hours. A fistula was made into the ductus communis choledochus, the duct being divided and a silver tube introduced. The experiment did not succeed in the point of view in which it was undertaken, and about forty-eight hours after the operation, the tube dropped out, After the removal of the tube the bile ceased to flow externally, and the animal did not appear to suffer any bad effects from the experiment. Thirty days after the operation, the animal having entirely recovered, he was killed by section of the medulla oblongata, and the parts carefully examined. The post-mortem examination I trans- cribe from my note book. On post-mortem examination the liver was found adherent to the dia-