INFLAMMATORY ACTION. 135 



carbonized mass, brittle and easily torn. The heart 

 was flabby and in a state of hypertrophy ; the left lung 

 healthy. The stomach was of enormous size, and ex- 

 tended from the left to the right hypochondriac region. 



The symptoms of hepatic abscess resolve themselves 

 under the two following heads, viz., those that indicate 

 inflammatory action, and those that indicate suppu- 

 ration. 



The first group is signalized by pain in the right 

 hypochondrium, increased by pressure, by a deep inspi- 

 ration, by coughing, or by lying on the left side ; there is 

 a dry hacking cough, difficulty of breathing, with shoot- 

 ing pains in the chest, somewhat resembling pleurisy, 

 and which extends to the shoulder of the affected side > 

 there is a yellow tinge of the conjunctiva, and some- 

 times jaundice ; the urine is high-coloured, scanty, and 

 throws down a copious sediment of lithates, or lithic 

 acid ; there is derangement of the stomach, vomiting, 

 hiccup, costiveness, or diarrhoea, which is dysenteric, and 

 there is more or less fever, which assumes an intermittent 

 type. In some instances there is a deficiency of bile in 

 the intestines, in which case the faeces are of a clay 

 colour, in other instances there is a superabundance, 

 which is then rejected by vomiting and by stool. When 

 the inflammation glides into suppuration, which usually 

 occurs at the end of eight or twelve days, unless it 

 previously terminates in resolution, the symptoms are 

 characterized by chills and distinct rigors, followed by 

 well-marked hectic fever ; and stomach derangement; the 

 pain, which is dull or acute in the inflammatory stage> 

 is now changed to a distinct throbbing, which may be 

 considered as pathognomonic of abscess ; there is rigid. 



