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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    dom even mentioned. Their function has been so obscure and apparently so unimportant, that theories with regard to it have not been advanced, and the highest chemical authorities, in speaking of their office in the economy, simply say of one, as of the other, that it is unknown. In the Chimie Anatomique, by Robin and Verdeil, we find cholesterine summed up in these words:— Le role physiologique qu'elle remplit dans l'4conomie est igalement in- connu. Of seroline, the same authors say :— On ne sait pas comment se forme la se'roline, ni quel est son role physiolo- gique Though the physiology of these substances is thus obscure, though chemistry has thus far done but little for their history, and physiology nothing, certain facts with relation to them would seem to indicate that they are not unimportant in the economy. Cholesterine is found in the blood, bile, liver, nervous matter, crystalline lens, meconium (not in the feces, as incorrectly stated by authors), besides in a number of morbid pro- ducts. It is found in these situations constantly; it appears in the blood as soon as that fluid is found, and continues to the end of life. Its quan- tity in the blood is increased in certain diseased conditions, and dimin- ished in others. Seroline has been said to exist constantly in the blood, though, till now, it has never been discovered in any other situation. It, like cholesterine, is a constant principle, they having many chemical cha- racters in common. Their function is definite; it is important; and, if the writer do not exaggerate this importance in the enthusiasm of explor- ing a hitherto absolutely uncultivated field, a knowledge of the functions of these substances will be of incalculable value to the practical physician ; and the path thus opened by physiology will lead to a great field for patho- logical inquiry. What the discovery of the function of urea has done for diseases which now come under the head of uremia, the discovery of the function of Cholesterine may do for the obscure diseases which may hereafter be classed under the head of Cholederemia. It is not surprising that the function of substances—which have been isolated with great difficulty, which have never been found in any of the excretions, which exist in quantity so small, that their investigation seemed to belong especially to the chemist, physiologists having been dis- couraged, perhaps, from studying them—should be thus obscure. But it is surprising that that important fluid, the bile, the product of the largest gland in the economy, and the one most constantly found in the animal scale, should be so little understood. This has been regarded by some as a simple excrement, and by others as not an excrementitious, but a digestive fluid, and so much labour has been expended by physiologists in endeavours to settle this point, that no one has pretended to give an account of its excre-