Diseases of the stomach : a text-book for practitioners and students / By Max Einhorn.

  • Einhorn, Max, 1862-1953.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diseases of the stomach : a text-book for practitioners and students / By Max Einhorn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    possesses antifermentative and slightly purgative prop- erties. The importance of the liver, however, cannot he judged from the influence which the hile exerts upon the digestive economy. To regard the liver in this light, says L. Brunton,' is just about as rational as to think that an Atlantic steamer has been built for the express purpose of throwing out from its sides the two jets which are formed by the waste water from the engines. The condensed steam may be utilized and so may the bile, but the condensation of steam is not the main object of an Atlantic steamer, nor is the secretion of bile a chief function of the liver. All the blood from the stomach and intestines must pass through the portal vein before it can reach the general circulation. The hepatic tissue acts the part of a prudent porter at a gate, and turns back or de- stroys dangerous intruders. The liver serves, briefly, the four following purposes: 1. It is a kind of store-room of the organism, many substances taken up by the digestive process being kept there until their final use in the system. Thus many of the peptones and the greatest part of sugar are stored up in the liver as glycogen. 2. It excludes from the circulation several poisonous matters or destroys them; curare, for instance, which is so poisonous when injected into the blood, proves quite innocuous when taken by the mouth, the reason being that the liver does not pass this poisonous matter into the circulation but retains it, and finally ex- cretes it through the bile. The liver guards the 'T. L. Brunton: Disorders of Digestion, London, lb93.