THE TOXIC ACTION OF CYSTINE ON THE LIVER OF THE ALBINO RAT

Abstract

While performing the postmortem examination of rats described in a preceding article which deals with the nephrotoxic action of ingested cystine, it was found that liver injury was commonly present in those rats that had ingested the diets containing 0.75 per cent or more of cystine. The livers of those rats that received the largest amounts of cystine were much darker than normal and suggested the color of fresh blood clot; whereas in the rats that had been fed small amounts of cystine, an outstanding gross injury was not detected. On microscopic examination it was found that even the addition of 0.75 per cent of cystine to an 8 per cent casein diet gave evidence of well marked injury. Further microscopic study indicated that the degree and extent of the injury was roughly proportional to the amount of cystine in the diet (table 1). The character of the lesion is