Vital Staining of Damaged Liver Cells

Some dyes are excreted almost exclusively by the liver and the rate of their elimination from the circulating blood is used as a test of certain aspects of hepatic function in man. Rose bengal is one of these dyes,""a"' and the test in which it is used is similar to the better known procedure utilizing bromsulphalein. Clearance of rose bengal from the blood is known to be retarded in hepatic diseases of man9 and in chloroform-induced liver damage in dogs.' But morphological aspects of hepatic excretion of rose bengal and other "liver function" dyes have received only slight attention10'1' (although the hepatic excretion of fluorescein, a related dyestuff, has been studied by means of ultraviolet microscopy7). This report presents an account of the intracellular deposition and clearance of rose bengal in normal and carbon tetrachloride-damaged livers of mice.