Addresses of Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D., and Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock : delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle, Nov. 7, 1855, in behalf of the United States Inebriate Asylum : Dr. Turner's address to the Board of Directors.

  • Bellows, Henry W. (Henry Whitney), 1814-1882.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Addresses of Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D., and Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock : delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle, Nov. 7, 1855, in behalf of the United States Inebriate Asylum : Dr. Turner's address to the Board of Directors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    THE LIVER. The liver is a viscus extremely subject to a disease induced by a long course of indulgence in intoxicating beverages. The venous blood of the body highly charged with alcohol arrives at the laboratory of the liver, where is manufactured vitiated bile, unfitted to assist or promote a normal digestion. Repeated conges- tions of contaminated blood diffused in its circulation through the parenchyma of the liver disorder its function, and at last end in a dis- organizaton of its structure. This is illustrated by the many dissec- tions I have made of those who have died from disease of the liver produced entirely by inebriety. The morbid lesions discovered by dissections are illustrated, viz: The first morbid appearance of the liver noticed is its enlargement and induration. We find also a species of tubercle diffused throughout its whole substance. These ^anomalous productions are of a brown color, and on section have something of a granulated appearance. They vary in size, but most generally are of the bulk of a pea. They have no connection with a scrofulous state of the system, but are evidently the result of a slow process of disease produced in the hver from the alcoholic state of the blood present in the chronic stage of inebriety, THE LUNGS. Since I have been investigating the morbid anatomy and pathology of inebriety, I have observed an emaciation of body frequently attend- ant upon the chronic form of this disease, which I have not been able to account for satisfactorily in all cases on the theory of defective nu- trition ; for in many dissections I have not only found the digestive apparatus free from organic lesion, but in a healthy state, capable of having performed its normal function (the assimilation of nutriment). From minute microscopic examinations of different organs to account for the causes of this wasting of the body, I turned the glass to the lungs, where I discovered minute granular bodies, of a firm texture, and identical in character with those already described in the liver. These bodies were found in some cases clustered together, more often separate, and embedded in the vescicles of the lungs. I have frequently found them present to the number of several hundred. Their favor- ite seat is in the lower lobes, yet in several cases they have been seen