80 REPORT—1843. 
conducted under the advice of the most eminent Parisian physicians, the patient died. 
On a post-mortem examination, the viscera of the great cavities appeared perfectly 
sound, with the exception of the liver, which was hypertrophied, but its general pa- 
renchymatous structure seemed healthy, with the exception of the mucous membrane 
of the biliary ducts, which was thickened, softened, and readily separable from the 
tissue beneath it; the ducts were enlarged and filled with a quantity of pus, and this 
through the whole organ, so that wherever an incision was made it oozed out. The 
veins were particularly examined, and were found quite natural. The gall-bladder 
was full of bile, mixed with pus. The mucous membrane of the entire alimentary 
canal was healthy. For this disease Dr. Olliffe proposed the name of ‘‘ Purulent Ca- 
tarrh of the Biliary Ducts;” and exhibited to the Section a cast, representing the con- 
dition of the liver on dissection. The cast was formed of the new material used by 
Dr. Felix Thibert of Paris, which possesses all the beauty of wax, and is much more 
durable, under all circumstances of temperature and casual violence. 
On the Means adopted by Nature in the Suppression of Hemorrhage from 
Large Arteries. By Dr. Houston. 
It was not the author's intention to go into an examination or statement of the 
theories laid down on this subject, derived from experiments on the lower animals, 
(these experiments, although they might solve some general question, were, he ob- 
served, frequently deceptive when applied to a particular case in human pathology,) 
but to state accurately the appearances he found in a very remarkable case which had 
come under his observation and treatment. In it the entire arm had been suddenly 
torn off. The patient, a stout, healthy man, had been caught by a belt in a mill and 
thrown down with much violence ; the arm which was caught was entirely removed ; 
the man got up and walked down three flights of ladders without knowing that he 
had lost his limb. When removed to the hospital, the constitutional symptoms were 
very slight; the stump was covered with grumous blood, and was much lacerated; 
the nerves, particularly the median, hanging out several inches. There was no 
hemorrhage, but a slight oozing. The brachial artery, when found, was tumified, 
smooth and soft at the extremity; strongly jerked by the pulsation of the heart, but 
not pouring out one drop of blood. For the prevention of fatal hemorrhage, a liga- 
ture was applied, and subsequently amputation was performed at the shoulder-joint ; 
on examining the artery below where the ligature was applied, the inner and middle 
coats were found to be retracted fully half an inch within the external or cellular coat, 
and the interval was filled with coagulated blood and cellular tissue in shreds. This 
blood Dr. Houston deemed to be perfectly fluid when it came under his observation 
first. The ‘ pursed-up” extremities of the inner coats retracted within the cellular 
sheath, he believes to have been the efficient cause of the closure, so as to prevent a 
fatal effusion of blood. A preparation of the artery taken from the removed stump, 
slit up to show the condition of the coats, and a drawing of the parts in their recent 
state, were exhibited to the Section. 
On the Treatment of External Aneurism by Pressure. By Prof. Harrison. 
The author alluded to the danger incurred in the usual mode of treatment by liga- 
ture, notwithstanding all the improvements introduced by Hunter and Scarpa; it was 
most desirable that another less hazardous mode should be adopted. He wished to 
bring before the Section a case of successful treatment by pressure. This mode, he 
Was aware, was not new, but he abstained from the attempt to arrest completely the 
circulation in the aneurismal sac, which attempt caused the very danger arising from 
ligature, namely, inflammation and sloughing ; in the revival of this method, the ob- 
ject was by restraining the flow of blood through the sac, without interfering with the 
collateral circulation, to fill the sac gradually with a coagulation, and thus procure its 
obliteration, while the collateral circulation becoraing enlarged by degrees, the limb 
will be supplied with its necessary quantity of blood. On this principle four cases had 
been successfully treated this year in Dublin, the last of which having been under his 
care, he laid it before the Section. The learned Professor then detailed the case at 
length from the 9th of May, when it first came under treatment, to the 10th of Au- 
gust, when the disease appeared to be completely removed. The instrument at first 
