THE DETOXICATION OF PUTREFACTIVE PRODUCTS BY THE HUMAN BODY

Abstract

The work of the many investigators on the relation of the liver to blood pressure, especially that of Major¹ and of James, Laughton and McCallum² is keeping before our minds the importance of the chemical functions of the liver. Besides these very interesting reactions there are also those of the detoxication of toxic organic compounds, either those naturally produced by bacterial decomposition of waste material in the body or those introduced into the organism in the course of experimental work. It is with the latter reactions that our laboratory has been chiefly interested during the last ten years;³ in fact, the detoxication reaction involving the acetylation of aminobenzoic acid has already been found to be a very good liver function test, although not as yet developed into a routine clinical method.⁴ This fact will be referred to again later on. According to the teaching of Metchnikoff, a man is as