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Disease of the gallbladder is diagnosed in our clinic more often than any other chronic intra-abdominal lesion. Twelve years ago we1 reported that gallbladder disease was found twice as frequently as peptic ulcer and gastric cancer combined and that it was the most common organic cause of dyspepsia. Nearly 6 per cent of all our patients over 20 years of age are diagnosed as having gallbladder disease. Yet pathologic studies show that ten times this percentage, or 60 per cent of adults, show cholecystopathies at routine autopsies.CHOLECYSTOPATHY AT AUTOPSYAutopsies recently performed (table 1) to study the gallbladder carefully have shown that cholecystitis and cholesterosis are the most common cholecystopathies, with stones frequently present. Stewart2 of Leeds reports a 16.4 per cent incidence of gallstones in 6,000 autopsies. Crump,3 recently working in Vienna, reports a 32.5 per cent incidence of gallstones and 60 per cent incidence

When injected intravenously into laboratory animals, extracts of most tissues show the presence of one or more substances with some depressor action. Rabbits and cats have been used for these experiments, but the dog is the animal best adapted for the purpose. By using an arterial cannula direct records of blood-pressure are obtained by means of the mercury manometer and the kymograph. It is observed also that with certain substances a marked fall in blood-pressure occurs on the first injection, but on the administration of a second dose a few minutes later a remarkable tolerance is revealed. The action of peptone on the blood and blood-pressure has been the subject of physiologic investigation for years. This substance causes a marked fall in blood-pressure with a subsequent tolerance to the same dose when injected intravenously.Howell,1 Jordan and Eyster,2 Dixon and Halliburton,3 and others, working with pineal extracts,

The past decade has given us a wealth of new knowledge concerning the functions of the liver, gallbladder and biliary ducts. Because of this added knowledge of the factors influencing these functions, the immediate hospital mortality of 6 per cent noted in the earlier groups of patients operated on for chronic cholecystitis has been reduced to less than 2 per cent in later groups. We now know that a diseased gallbladder is almost always accompanied by inflammatory changes in the liver and in the biliary ducts, with resulting damage to liver function.The damaged liver functions best with a high glycogen reserve. Dextrose by mouth passes through the portal circulation and is quickly stored as hepatic glycogen. The excess reaches the general circulation and is stored as muscle glycogen, not readily available for vital functions because it is not so readily released. For this reason apparently, ingested dextrose is actually