A practical treatise on the diseases of the liver and biliary passages / by William Thomson.

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the liver and biliary passages / by William Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of an excellent article on the effects of calomel in producing slimy stools in children (Lond. Med. and Surg. Journ. ii. 344), says : I do not believe that the bile has much to do, in general, in producing the green and slimy stools of children. I have examined many bodies in which the lower part of the intes- tinal canal was fotmd to contain a great quantity of green slimy matter, but where its contents were of the natural co- lour towards the upper part; I have also noticed the colour of the bile in the gall-bladder to be natural, in bodies where the contents of the bowels were perfectly unhealthy in appearance. There does not, therefore, appear to be sufficient reason for attributing the gi-een or dirty colotu- of the stools, observed al- most invariably in the diseases of childi-en, to a morbid altera- tion of the bile, or to a superabundance of it. Dr Holland, in observing that the peculiar matter resembling coffee grounds, which sometimes comes away in such large quantity from the bowels, is often described as disordered bile, though he believes it to be separated, in gi-eat part, in the lower intestines, adds: Those secretions, also, which resemble chopped grass or spi- nach, have probably the same origin; and even of the liquid which is called green bile, it is doubtful what proportion may come from the liver. 354. The influence of calomel in producing green stools, when administered to children on account of cerebral affections, of which the green stools are often regarded as a symptom, seems to us well deserving of investigation. We have seen in cases of this kind, the evacuations changed by a single dose of calo- mel, from a bright yeUoAV to spinach-gi-een. 355. May white stools occiu- in cases in which there is no jaundice, and, if so, how can this phenomenon be accounted for ? The only explanation which it seems possible to give of the occurrence is, that the blood is deficient in the appropriate ele- ments of the biliary principles, and that any fluid which the Hver secretes, is, consequently, deficient in these prmcipks; for, if the want of the due constitution of the bde depended, not on deficiency of proper materials in the blood, but simply the liver not being capable of sepai'ating them from that fluid, on