Part 164

FILARIA RESTIFORMIS.--Under this name the writer recently described a large Filaria reported to have been withdrawn from the urethra of a man in West Virginia. It was obtained by C. L. Garnett, and sent, together with an account of the case, to the Army Medical Museum of Washington, where it is now preserved. It was a red cylindrical worm, twenty-six inches in length, tapering at the head, and thick, incurved, and obtusely rounded at the tail end.

* * * * *

FILARIA OCULI HUMANI; FILARIA LENTIS.--A few cases are on record of the occurrence of little worms in the aqueous humor and crystalline lens of the human eye, to which the accompanying names have been applied.

* * * * *

FILARIA TRACHEALIS.--Recently some minute worms found by Rainey in the trachea and lungs have been described under this name.

* * * * *

In conclusion, the writer acknowledges his indebtedness for much of the information of this article to the articles on "Intestinal Parasites" and "Diseases from Migratory Parasites" in Ziemssen's Cyclopædia of the Practice of Medicine, and to Glazier's Report on Trichina and Trichinosis.

{965}

DISEASES OF THE LIVER.

BY ROBERTS BARTHOLOW, A.M., M.D., LL.D.

I. FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS.

Biliousness.

DEFINITION.--The term biliousness is used to signify a disturbance of the gastro-intestinal digestion, with coincident excess in the production of bile. According to the popular conception, both lay and medical, the excess of bile is the cause of the symptoms; but when the whole subject is carefully examined it will be found that biliousness is made up of several factors, and that the hepatic disorder, if it exist at all, is a mere incident.

PATHOGENY.--From the time of Galen biliousness has been regarded as a morbid entity and the liver as the organ affected. Stoll, amongst moderns, first revived the Galenical doctrines. Abernethy was amongst English physicians the most conspicuous advocate of the condition called biliousness, and was the apostle of blue pill and black draught. Copland in his great dictionary more distinctly formulated the views of the English school--especially that portion of it influenced by the results of Indian practice--than had been previously attempted, and hence his work best represents the opinions and practice of the time amongst the English-speaking peoples. In this country the great Rush first promulgated the notions of biliousness which have since so dominated the medical opinion of this continent. A large part of the United States has proved a fruitful soil for the cultivation of theories of biliousness, since the condition known under this name is a frequent accompaniment of malarial poisoning. To this fact must be attributed the preponderating importance of biliary derangements in the practice of the physicians of India also.

It is a fact which will be hereafter more fully developed that malarial infection may, and often does, derange the hepatic functions without producing fever. The malarial poison irritates the liver, and thus more bile is produced, but the quality deteriorates with the increase in quantity. The functions of the liver are more disturbed during an access of intermittent fever: the organ is swollen, the skin is muddy, the eyes yellow, the tongue coated with a thick yellow fur, and the urine is deeply tinged with bile-pigment.

Many of the metals employed as medicines and as poisons, as gold, {966} silver, antimony, arsenic, phosphorus, etc., irritate the liver both in their entrance and in their exit from the organism, and cause biliousness; and the same fact is true of some vegetable alkaloids and animal poisons. The liver excretes many of these substances, and in their passage out from the blood the hepatic cells are irritated and an increased production of bile is a result. Improper food, indulgence in fats, sweets, condiments, and all kinds of fermented and alcoholic liquors, intestinal indigestion arising from any cause, and gastro-duodenal catarrh, are the most usual and obvious pathogenic factors. In respect to food and indigestion as etiological factors there are several points requiring more explicit statement. When nitrogenous elements (albuminoids) are in excess in quantity or as respects the power to digest and convert them, immature products, of which uric acid is the chief, accumulate in the blood. When the fats, sugars, and starches are in excess of the requirements of the organism or are imperfectly disposed of in the small intestines, a local irritation of the mucous membrane is produced, and various complicated, immature products enter the blood. With these troubles and faults of intestinal digestion a gastro-duodenal catarrh is usually associated. Without the production of catarrhal jaundice, gastro-duodenal catarrh, with the forms of indigestion accompanying it, keeps up a reflex irritation of the liver. Just as the presence of normal chyme induces the flow of bile, so the unhealthy products of intestinal indigestion excite an irritation of the liver. The continued operation of this cause maintains an abnormal activity of the liver, and more bile is produced than is easily disposed of.

SYMPTOMS.--The condition of biliousness, as now understood, is made up of derangement of the gastro-duodenal mucous membrane, with bile-production in excess and bile-absorption probably delayed. The symptoms are the product of these complicated conditions. The complexion is muddy; the conjunctivæ are yellow; the tongue is heavily coated with a yellowish-white fur; a bitter taste persists in the mouth; the breath is heavy in odor, even fetid; the appetite may be keen or there may be complete anorexia; a sensation of nausea, of heaviness, and fulness of the stomach is experienced, especially after eating; the bowels are confined usually, but occasionally the movements are relaxed, bilious in appearance, and cause heat and irritation about the anus; headache is constantly present to some extent, and there is a sense of fulness with more or less dizziness, and singing in the ears; vision is rather blurred, and there is a hebetude of mind; the urine is high-colored, high in specific gravity, and deposits lithates abundantly on cooling. When these symptoms are conjoined with hemicrania, nausea, and vomiting, the case is called bilious sick headache, and when diarrhoea supervenes, the discharges apparently containing much bile, it is bilious diarrhoea. The symptoms which above all others give the character to the morbid complexus are the muddy (bilious) complexion, the yellow-coated tongue, the yellow conjunctivæ, and the high-colored urine. The first departure from the normal may be scarcely observed. Gradually, owing chiefly to errors of diet, to climatic changes, or to malarial influences, or to these several factors combined, the affected person drifts into the condition of biliousness above described. Besides the general malaise, he experiences no little despondency, inaptitude for exertion, and indeed actual weakness. Finally, he is unable to apply himself to business, relinquishes the effort, and seeks advice.

{967} COURSE, DURATION, AND TERMINATION.--Those who are accustomed to experience attacks of biliousness suffer from them at certain intervals which may be tolerably regular--at intervals of a few days, two, three, or four weeks--when the cause is uniform; but they may happen very irregularly when the conditions producing them are variable. The duration of an attack is from two days to a week or more, according to the severity of the symptoms and to the character of the measures instituted for relief. The termination is in a return to the normal state. If the conditions which produced it continue, when one attack is ended the preparations for another begin at once, and at length sufficient derangement of the organs concerned arises to constitute the morbid complexus of biliousness.

TREATMENT.--Prophylaxis has great importance, since the causes of the malady are to a considerable extent, at least, preventable. Errors of diet in respect to the use of condiments, fats, meat, pastry, etc. must be corrected. When there is pronounced gastro-duodenal catarrh and acid fermentation in the duodenum, the saccharine, fatty, and starchy elements of the food must rather be excluded and lean meats allowed. Abundant exercise, bathing, and an open-air life in general should be directed. Whenever a malarial infection is causative a change of climate becomes imperative. Heredity cannot, of course, be excluded, but the tendency to hepatic derangement can be rendered inoperative by an abstemious life.

The remedial management includes the dietetic as well as the medicinal treatment. When the distress has reached sufficient proportions to justify such an extreme measure, the patient should be restricted to a diet exclusively of skimmed milk, of which he is directed to take a gill or more every three hours. This serves a double purpose, as aliment and as a depurative agent, for this considerable quantity of fluid promotes the urinary excretion and the elimination of waste products. If the case is not severe enough to allow of such an expedient, the diet should in any event be restricted to skimmed milk hot, milk and hot water, hot lemonade, a little chicken or mutton broth, a bit of dry toast, etc. As a rule, although not so palatable, hot drinks are more beneficial than cold, but if the preference is decidedly for cold, they may be allowed. After the more severe symptoms have subsided a little lean meat broiled may be added, and as the cure proceeds the succulent vegetables and acid fruits may be permitted. Abstinence from potatoes, hominy, cracked wheat, and oatmeal should be enjoined during the convalescence of those who suffer from habitual attacks.

Medicines may not be necessary to those who have the resolution to adhere to skimmed milk for several days or who can abstain from food altogether for a day. Many experienced sufferers, especially through the South and West and in England, procure rather prompt relief from a blue pill of ten to fifteen grains or from one to five grains of calomel at night, followed by a Seidlitz powder, Rochelle or Epsom salts, or phosphate of soda on the following morning. Such patients find that no other treatment is as serviceable. They get relief from other measures, it is true, but neither as promptly nor as satisfactorily. It is held by the advocates of this practice that the mercurial acts on the liver--that the surplus bile is carried off; and they point to the peculiar stools and to {968} the relief experienced in evidence of the truth of this theory. Without entering on the argument, which would occupy too much space, it must suffice here to state that calomel and blue pill do not increase bile-production, but they do stimulate the intestinal glands and increase excretion from them. The peculiar greenish stools produced by these mercurials do not owe their characteristic appearance to the presence of bile, but rather to the chemical transformations of the mercury itself and to the waste products excreted by the intestinal glands. Since the researches of Rutherford have been published, euonymin has been much prescribed in cases of biliousness. From three to five grains are taken at the bed-hour, and a mild laxative in the morning. In the same group of cholagogues are ipecac, iridin, sanguinarin, and especially podophyllin; but the serious objection to their use is that they stimulate the liver when this organ is in an irritable state. As calomel and blue pill have a sedative rather than a stimulant action on the liver, they are more useful in biliousness than are the true cholagogues. It should be borne in mind that one-half of a grain of calomel will have a distinct purgative action on many persons, and that one grain will rarely need to be exceeded.

In general, notwithstanding the unquestionable utility of the mercurial, it is better to relieve cases of biliousness by less objectionable measures. A saline which acts at the same time on the intestines and kidneys, as Rochelle salts, is usually effective in bringing relief. A bottle of solution of magnesia citrate, of Saratoga water (Congress, Hathorn, or High Rock), and of Blue Lick, the famous sulphurous laxative of Kentucky, may remove the disorder in mild cases if at the same time a suitable diet is enjoined. Phosphate of soda in laxative doses, with or without Vichy water, is also a good remedy, if somewhat slow. The warm purgatives, rhubarb, colocynth, aloes, etc., are useful when there is pronounced constipation.

Lithæmia.

DEFINITION.--By the term lithæmia is meant a condition of the system in which uric (lithic) acid is produced in excess, and in which certain derangements occur in consequence of the accumulation of this material in the blood. Uricæmia was the term first suggested by Flint, Sr., to express this state, and subsequently lithæmia was employed by Murchison. The latter has been more generally accepted. In one of the most recent and valuable contributions to this subject by DaCosta lithæmia is the term used to designate the complex of symptoms produced by uric acid in excess.

PATHOGENY.--The ultimate product of albuminoid substances in the organism prepared for final excretion is urea. That this substance is {969} finally formed in the liver, to be excreted by the kidneys, seems now well established. In acute yellow atrophy of the liver, with the disappearance of the proper structure of the organs urea ceases to be produced, and instead leucin and tyrosin are excreted. In certain states of the system characterized by deficient oxidation urea is not sufficiently formed, and instead uric acid, a lower grade of oxidation and a product of the disintegration of albuminoid substances, results. An excess of urates is not always pathological. Their excretion seems to be in a certain sense a safety-valve function. When albuminoid matters are taken in excess of the power of the system to convert them, or when the supply of oxygen to the blood is deficient from any cause, urea is not formed, but uric acid and urates are abundantly excreted by the urine. Imperfect digestion of the albuminoids when they are not taken in relatively too large an amount, and limitation below the normal of the oxidation process when the supply of oxygen is not insufficient, will have the same effect: in place of urea, uric acid and urates will be formed and excreted. One of the early results of the persistent presence of an excess of uric acid is the production of lithæmia, the morbid complexus of which this excess is at once the cause and the proof.

The persons who suffer from lithæmia are usually those who indulge in the pleasures of the table and habitually consume much meat, pastry, and highly-seasoned and rich food of all kinds. The idle, luxurious, and indolent, literary men of sedentary habits, men who have led active lives, but on retiring from business have continued to indulge in a full diet, are apt to suffer from this malady. Women are less disposed to it, but if subjected to the same conditions may also be similarly affected. Especially do those suffer from lithæmia who indulge in malt liquors or in alcoholic drinks of any kind. These substances act by deranging digestion, and thus preventing the proper conversion of the albuminoids, by inducing congestion of the liver, and also by interfering with the process of oxidation.

SYMPTOMS.--The symptoms of lithæmia include derangements of the digestive organs and of the liver, of the circulation, and of the nervous system. As these subjects suffer from gastric and gastro-duodenal catarrh, they present the usual symptomatology of these affections, as a sense of weight and oppression at the epigastrium, acidity, pyrosis, a capricious--sometimes voracious, sometimes good--appetite, a coated {970} tongue, a bitter taste, etc. The bowels are irregular, sometimes constipated, occasionally relaxed, with scybalæ. The stools may be liquid, almost black or light-yellow and grayish. The motions are apt to be offensive, and a good deal of offensive gas is discharged with them. Hemorrhoids are often present, and there may be heat and irritation about the anus, and not unfrequently intolerable itching. After meals there is much depression, and often an insupportable drowsiness. Irregularity in the rhythm, even intermissions, of the pulse are not infrequent.

The nervous symptoms, as DaCosta has lately insisted on, are the most important and pronounced. The connection between oxaluria and mental despondency has long been known, but the nature of the relation remains undetermined. Headache, frontal and occipital, especially the former, dizziness, tinnitus aurium, suffusion of the eyes, ecchymoses of the conjunctiva, are usually present. Not unfrequently the subjects of this affection experience sudden attacks of vertigo, accompanied by dimness of vision and intense headache, and are supposed to have some organic lesion of the brain. They are irritable, despondent, and often intensely hypochondriacal, almost suicidal--are subject to neuralgic attacks, and have aching in the limbs, a sense of weariness, and more or less burning in the palms and soles.