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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    jaundice must arise from their retention, as in the class of cases already referred to (11). 356. Besides the occurrence of white stools without jaundice, depending on what Dr Coe terms such a degeneracy of the bile that it has lost its yellowness, and, therefore, cannot tinge the stools, if it does pass the duct, or the skin and the urine, if it regurgitates into the blood, that author alleges that the same phenomenon may arise from the bile being detained in the gall-bladder, after its secretion, either from such a state of the coats of the bladder that all its pores and vessels are stopped up, as well as the ducts ; or from such a viscidity of the bile that it cannot make its way into the blood anymore than through the duct; and he refers to the case of large distention of the gall-bladder related by Mr Gibson in the Edinburgh Medical Essays (ii. 352), as one in which the stools were white with- out any other signs of jaundice presenting themselves. 357. The alvine evacuations are liable, in certain diseases of the liver, to experience other modifications besides those which depend on variations in the quantity and qualities of the bile, that may assist in leading the practitioner to a knowledge of the existence of the disease, and of its particular nature. 358. We have seen, in regard both to abscesses (93) and to hydatid cysts in the liver (121), that in a considerable propor- tion of the cases, in which they experience perforation, they dis- charge their contents into the intestinal canal. These matters will, of course, in such cases, appear in the alvine evacuations, and. If other symptoms of hepatic disease exist, will enable us to decide as to its nature ; otherwise, we may be left in uncer- wpi^dtr^^^^^ ''^^ - ^^^-^^^ 359 That subsequently to the formation of an abscess in the W, Its purulent contents may be absorbed, and in finding their way by some channel, to the mucous surface of the intestinal canal, may be poured into that canal and discharged by stool s an opinion which has been long entertained, and in suppo'; of which numerous cases have been recorded. It may how ever, admit of doubt whether, in some of the casesTS ^ l