“Preliminary communication on the composition of the liver after subcutaneous injections of liver extracts”

About two years ago the authors observed that it was possible to increase the resistance of rabbit blood against trypsin by treating the animal to subcutaneous injections of pancreatic extract. It seemed probable that the resistance of organs against other proteolytic enzymes than trypsin could be increased in an analogous manner.

Rabbits were treated with saline liver extracts. The autolytic powers of the livers of such animals were compared with the autolytic powers of the livers of normal animals. It was found that the autolytic power of the organ was not diminished by the treatment referred to. It was also noted that the organs of the treated animals contained smaller proportions of nitrogen than the livers of the control animals, and further, that the proportions of noncoagulable proteins and of nonbasic nitrogen were higher than in the controls.

In order to accurately interpret the findings, the figures for composition of the livers were compared. It was noted that the amounts of water and carbohydrates were not affected by the treatment, while the proportion of ether-extract was higher in the organs of the treated animals than in those of the control animals. The appended table gives the data of nine experiments, on as many animals.