THE PREVENTION OF LIVER DAMAGE

Abstract

Although it is generally believed that attempts to improve the resistance of the liver to injury from hepatotoxic agents is a contribution of the present century, elaborate studies in this field were undertaken during the nineteenth century.¹It was, however, the experiments of Opie and Alford²which led clinicians, at least in this country, to believe that a diet high in carbohydrate offered direct protection of the liver from the necrotizing effects of chloroform. Their work received confirmation in the later experiments of Davis, Hall and Whipple³and Graham.⁴ The unfortunate interpretation which clinicians placed on the results of these investigations led them to conclude that a high concentration of liver glycogen would in itself protect the liver from injury from a wide variety of agents, that the detoxifying power of the liver was proportional to its glycogen content and finally that hepatic regeneration would proceed