The diseases of the liver have continued to remain to the present day a subject of extreme difficulty, in spite of the progress made in the anatomy of this viscus. As one of the chief organs concerned in sanguification, it affects, as might indeed have been inferred a priori, the somatic and psychical character of the individual in the most varied and extensive manner within the range of physiological bounds; and on the other hand, many of its morbid affections, which are beyond the reach of the scalpel, become intelligible only by attending to the anomalies presented in other organs. It is to be hoped that future inquiries may elucidate them more fully by showing the influence these anomalies have upon the constitution of the blood, and by explaining the various spontaneous derangements of the vital fluid.

1. Arrest And Excess Of Development

The liver is absent in very imperfect monstrosities, especially in acephalous monsters, in which the heart, the lungs, and the greater part of the intestinal canal are also deficient; in biventral monsters the liver presents more or less marked traces of duplication.

2. On The Irregularities Of Volume Generally, And On Hypertrophy And Atrophy In Particular

We find the liver either abnormally enlarged or abnormally diminished in size. The former defect, in which the left lobe remains permanently enlarged, so as to extend to the left hypochondrium and beyond the spleen, is occasionally congenital. Both conditions, when acquired, become extremely interesting in a diagnostic point of view.

Increase in the volume and weight of the liver depends upon:

Firstly, Hyperaemia, congestive turgor;

Secondly, Inflammation, inflammatory swelling;

Thirdly, Congestion and stasis in the capillary gall-vessels;

Fourthly, True uniform hypertrophy;

Fifthly, Excessive, but morbid, nutrition, i. e. the deposition or infiltration of a substance foreign to the hepatic tissue in quantity or quality - conditions which have hitherto been considered as hypertrophy of one of the component parts of the organ;

Sixthly, Adventitious products, which directly increase the weight and volume of the liver in proportion to their own number and size, and indirectly contribute to that effect by the congestion they give rise to in the surrounding tissue.

Diminution in the volume of the liver is the result of atrophy and alteration in the tissue.