The experimental production of watery vacuolation of the liver

In this paper it will be shown that when the oxygen supply to the liver is seriously impaired, water passes from the blood into the liver cells and forms large watery vacuoles in the cell cytoplasm. This phenomenon only occurs provided that, during the period of liver anoxia, the blood pressure in the liver sinusoids is maintained at least at its normal value; if the pressure is above normal, the liver-cell vacuolation is more rapid and greater in extent. It seems that anoxia, by increasing the permeability of either the sinusoids or the livercell walls, allows the existing hydrostatic pressure in the sinusoids to force water, and probably other plasma constituents, into the liver cells. It is necessary to distinguish two sets of circumstances under which this liver-cell vacuolation has been found to occur. (i) In vivo vacuolation. Vacuoles may develop during life in any conditions of severe anoxia. The anoxia must be very severe, to the point of threatening life, and must persist for 20-30 min. before significant vacuolation occurs. (ii) Post-mortem vacuolation. When an animal dies from anoxia (or asphyxia) vacuoles rapidly develop during the first 5-15 min. post-mortem, provided the animal is not bled out. In such an animal the venous blood pressure rises considerably just before death and a positive venous pressure persists for some time after death; this pressure is communicated back to the liver sinusoids and is sufficient to cause vacuolation of the highly anoxic post-mortem liver. In death from other causes, the intrahepatic blood pressure after death is approximately zero and so no vacuoles develop. One proviso must be made with regard to the above statementsthe liver must contain no more than a moderate amount of glycogen. If the liver is full of glycogen vacuolation will usually not occur under the conditions specified.