897. Bryan Glynon, November 18th,
| cwt. | qr. | lbs. | oz. | |
| before the experiment, weighed | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| after the experiment | 1 | 0 | 24 | 1 |
| having lost | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 |
On the 3rd of June he weighed 1 cwt. 27 lbs., having lost 1 lb. 4 oz.
898. Thus, in the course of their ordinary occupation, these men are in the habit of losing from 2 lbs. to 5 lbs. and upwards twice a-day; yet, when weighed at distant intervals, it is found that some have actually gained in weight and others have lost only a few pounds; it follows that the activity of the daily absorption must be proportionate to that of the daily transpiration.
899. According to the prevalent opinion, the liver is the cause of a large proportion of the maladies which afflict and destroy human life. It certainly exercises an important influence over health and disease, the true reason of which is but little understood by those who attribute most to its agency.
900. The liver is an organ of digestion and an organ of excretion.
It is an organ of digestion in a two-fold mode:
1. By the secretion of a peculiar fluid, through the direct action of which chyme is converted into chyle. The several phenomena attending this operation have been fully described (668 et seq.).
2. By subjecting alimentary matters which have been partly acted on by the stomach and intestines to a second digestion.
901. It has been shown ([666]) that the veins which return the blood from the digestive organs, the stomach, the intestines, and the mesentery, together with the veins of the spleen, the omentum and the pancreas, instead of pursuing a direct course to the right side of the heart in order to transmit their contents by the shortest route to the lungs, as is the case with all the other veins of the body, unite together and form a large trunk termed the vena portæ, which enters the liver and ramifies through it in the manner of an artery. It has been further shown ([666]) that the bile is secreted from the venous blood contained in this vessel by its capillary branches spread out on the walls of the biliary ducts, the only known instance in the human body in which a secretion is formed from venous blood by venous capillaries; that the trunk of this vein, unlike that of any other, is encompassed with organic nerves, which accompany its subdivisions, and are spread out upon its capillary branches just as an organic nerve is spent upon an artery, and that thus, as this vessel performs the function of an artery, it has the structure and distribution of an artery.