The Non-Specificity of Suspensions of Sodium Xanthine in Protecting the Liver Against Injury by Chloroform, and the Probable Cause of Its Action 12

Sato (la) has reported the extraction from the liver of a " detoxicating hormone," which he named Yakriton.This preparation is claimed to protect the body against a variety of induced pathological conditions, including the damaging effect of chloroform upon the liver (lb).More recently Forbes and Neale (2a) and Forbes, Neale and Scherer (2b) have reported the preparation of a new fraction of an aqueous extract of hog's liver.When this extract was injected subcutaneously into albino rats, previous to exposure to carbon tetrachloride or chloroform, hepatic necrosis did not result.It also prevented the hepatic cirrhosis produced by repeated ex- posures to carbon tetrachloride (2b, 2f).A crystalline material, identified as sodium xanthine by Neale (2d) and Neale and Winter (2e), was prepared from the extract by Forbes and Mc- Connell (2c).Either the purified crystals or sodium xanthine, injected in equal quantities into rats, conferred the same degree of protection against hepatic damage by carbon tetrachloride or chloroform (2d, 2e).Barrett, MacLean and McHenry (3) have con- firmed these findings in rats exposed to carbon tetrachloride.They injected either a suspension of purified " antinecrotic " material furnished by Dr. Forbes, or pure xanthine in equal dosages.Con- trol injections of saline gave negative results.In agreement with Forbes and Neale and their co- workers, they found both protection of the liver from damage and an accelerated regeneration of the injured cells.Fitzhugh (4) has also reported protection by xanthine of the livers of rats exposed to carbon 1 Preliminary reports of the data in this paper were made before the Physiological Society of Philadelphia,