73 



CHAPTEE VI. 



ACUTE OR YELLOW ATROPHY OF THE LIVER. 



SYNONYMOUSLY. The Atrophia hepatis flava sive 

 acuta, Hepatitis diffusa, or Diffuse Inflammation of the 

 Liver. 



HISTORICALLY. Morgagni, in his work entitled, " De 

 sedibus et causis Morborum," gives us the first authentic 

 records of acute wasting of the liver. Long before this, 

 however, cases of the same kind were noticed by various 

 authors, as Jacob Vercelloni in 1660 gives a clear 

 account of the disease from which his brother suffered. 

 Being hardly pressed by his creditors one night, he 

 became suddenly jaundiced from fright, and soon fell 

 into a restless delirium, with an irregular pulse and 

 panting respiration, and died on the third day. Rubeus, 

 about the same time, gives an analogous case. Baillou 

 records the case of a boy, only fourteen, who, on the 

 fifteenth day of an apparently slight attack of jaundice, 

 with clay-coloured stools, suddenly fell into delirium 

 and convulsions, gave utterance to loud articulate 

 sounds, and suddenly died. In the works of Morgagni 

 we find other cases recorded, and in addition two inter- 

 esting ones from the practice of Valsalva, in both of 

 which the jaundice was the result of violent mental 

 emotions. Both patients were young, and died, one in 

 two days, the other in twenty-four hours after the com- 



