Besides the secretion of bile, the liver performs another important function, viz, the production of sugar. While a consideration of this subject is not essential to the doctrine of diseases, certain facts pertaining to it as discovered by M. Claude Bernard, may be of interest.

So far as is known the presence of sugar in the liver is common to all species of animate. The avenge percentage in the healthy liver of man and the dog is about the same.

The system does not depend for its supply of sugar entirely upon exter. nal sources; saccharine matter is produced independently in the tissues of the liver, whatever may be the nature of the food subsisted upon. Bernard kept two dogs under his own observation, one for a period of three, the other of eight months, during which time they were confined strictly to a diet of animal food, boiled calves' head and tripe, and then killed. Upon an examination, the liver was found in each instance to contain a proportion of sugar fully equal to that present in the organ under ordinary circumstances.

In considering this sugar producing function, an important question naturally arises, bearing upon the proper feeding of dogs. It has been maintained by some that starchy and saccharine matters are utterly detestable to the canine race. A consideration of a few facts will render apparent that this extreme doctrine is untenable.

While it is certain starchy matters are not digested in the stomach, but pass unchanged into the small intestine, experiments have proved beyond all doubts that the intestinal fluids of a dog transform starch into sugar with the greatest promptitude, and it is then as rapidly absorbed. If a dog is fed on boiled starch and meat, while some of the latter remains in his stomach for eight, nine, or ten hours, the starch begins immediately to pass into the intestine, where it is at once converted into sugar and absorbed. The whole of the starch even may have completely disappeared in an hour's time. It is evident therefore that nature has made ample provision for the digestion of starchy food.

The writer maintains that while meat is the proper food for a dog, he as strongly insists that starchy matters in small quantities, far from being injurious, are really conducive to the health of the animal. Although the saccharine matter becomes changed after absorption, these same chemical changes themselves serve to maintain the integrity of the blood, and the healthy nutrition of the body.