176 CANCER OF THE LIVER. 



second aphorism of his great work the following striking 

 sentence : " In cases of jaundice it is a bad symptom 

 when the liver becomes indurated!' clearly proving the 

 marvellous diagnostic powers of that great man at that 

 remote period of " medical history." Similar observa- 

 tions are to be found in the writings of Galen, Areta-us 

 and other ancient authors. Under the term " scirrhus 

 hepatis," however, every form of induration of the liver 

 was formerly included, whether its character was that of 

 the simple, the granular induration, or the true cancer. 

 Jiianchi, in his " Historia Hepatica," Hoil'mann, in his 

 '- Dissertatio Mi-dica de Hepatis Scirrh<." ITi'i' : 1 

 haave.Yan Swietcn, Morjani. Huysch, Stoll, and Matthew 

 JJaillie, down to IT'.M, improved but little on the crude 

 pathology of cancer as viewed and described by the 

 physicians <>f a far more remote era; and it was not 

 till ISIU ih; is, gave us the first accu- 



rate description of cancer of the liver, and a clear 

 statistical demonstration of its frequent occurren* 

 that oru'an. He it was who first pointed out that 

 those tumours of the liver, previm; ribccl as 



>ma, white bodies, nodes, tubercl* milar 



bodies, --re in D icer' 1 



inasmuch as their anatomical re was iden- 



tical with that of cancer of the breast, and be< 

 Ihev un the SUne changes. COH with 



-r in other organs, and finally produced the - 

 injurious consequences uj ilution. 



Anatomically, many circumstances conspire to render 

 the liver more susceptible to the deposit both of 

 abscesses and the dissemination of cancer than any 

 (t her organ in the body. We have in the first place, 



