A practical treatise on the diseases of the liver and biliary passages / by William Thomson ... also, Clinical illustrations of diseases of the liver and spleen, by William Twining.

  • Thomson, William, 1943-2017.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the liver and biliary passages / by William Thomson ... also, Clinical illustrations of diseases of the liver and spleen, by William Twining. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    DISEASES THE LIVER AND BILIARY PASSAGES. CHAPTER I. OP THE CHANGES IN FUNCTION AND STRUCTURE TO WHICH THE BILIARY ORGANS ARE SUBJECT. SECTION I. FUNCTIONAL DERANGEMENTS OF THE BILIARY ORGANS. 1. As the peculiar functions of the Liver and its appendages, the Gall-bladder and the Gall-ducts, consists in the secretion and excretion of the Bile, the functional derangements of these organs must necessarily be referrible to an increased, a diminished, or a vitiated secretion of that fluid ; or to its impeded, altered, or de- ranged excretion. These various disturbances of the functions of the biliary organs may, there is reason to believe, occur independ- ently of any perceptible alterations in their structure, constituting what may perhaps with most propriety be denominated their dyna- mical derangements; or they may occur as consequences of, or at least in combination with, obvious structural alterations. 2. But whilst the bile may undergo various morbid changes in its quantity and in its qualities, without any apparent disease of its secreting organ, on the other hand, this fluid may present, to all appearance at least, its natural characters, and be found in its usual quantity,in cases in which there exists extensive structural alteration of the liver. I have several times, says Dr. Malcolmson, seen a free, and even copious and healthy secretion of bile, when great part of the viscus was destroyed by suppuration, the remaining por- tion of the gland appearing then to take on an increased action. 3