THE EFFECT OF ANESTHETICS ON HEPATIC FUNCTION

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Abstract
Experimental studies on liver function are often carried out under anesthesia, although it is being increasingly recognized that anesthetics modify physiologic processes; the pharmacologist has also shown that they alter the response of the body to many drugs. Death at times occurs during operative procedures on patients with severe liver disease; the effect of anesthetics on a diseased liver may play an important rôle in such fatalities. For these reasons we have undertaken to study the effect of various anesthetics on the liver, as indicated by bile pigment disturbances and by the bromsulphalein test for hepatic function. The changes which anesthetics produce on the liver, however, have a more general interest in that this impaired function is only a reflection of the widespread depression of cell activity resulting from certain anesthetics; analogous changes are undoubtedly produced in most other organs. The tests based on pigment metabolism which we have employed

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