JAUNDICE — NATURE AND CAUSATION. 70-? 



as more properly a disease of the liver, it is certainly known to 

 occur in connection with structural changes of other organs,, 

 and unassociated with obvious hepatic alterations. 



In the exercise of our profession, as practitioners of animal 

 medicine, we know that the horse is probably less a sufferer 

 from this affection than other of our patients. While it is 

 extremely probable that the more frequent exhibitions of this 

 affection in him, and those, too, which are the most evanescent, 

 appear as symptoms merely of certain general and febrile dis- 

 orders, in which we have long and generally been disposed to 

 link their occurrence with hepatic disturbance. Of the truth 

 of this, post-mortem examination has often satisfied us ; similar 

 examinations have also assured us that these icteric symptoms, 

 in their most severe forms of development, have often been 

 associated with extensive structural changes of the gland. 



To account for the phenomena of jaundice, as observed in 

 association with varying changes and disturbances occurring in 

 the liver, several hypotheses have been started ; the mere fact 

 of the existence of these indicating that our knowledge of 

 hepatic function is neither so full nor so exact as we could wish, 

 nor as we may yet expect it to be, as also the great probability 

 that the assemblage of symptoms with which we are now deal- 

 ing may be but the natural expression of several somewhat 

 dissimilar conditions. 



Without entering particularly into the consideration of all 

 the theories propounded to account for the exhibition of the 

 characteristic symptoms of jaundice, it may be stated that of 

 these, the most generally accepted by those who are competent 

 to adjudicate in these matters are — (1) That its appearance is 

 attributable to the non-elaboration or true hepatic manufacture 

 of the peculiar liver-secretion bile, the so-called suppression 

 theory ; and (2) That it may be attributed rather to the perver- 

 sion or arrest of its natural outpouring after being manufactured^ 

 the so-called absorption theory. 



By the first of these it is sought to be demonstrated that the 

 arrest of the biliary function preventing the removal from the 

 blood of certain materials, chiefly cholesterine and bile colour- 

 ing matters, these are thrown back upon the circulation, this 

 haemal impregnation ultimately staining all the tissues which 

 derive their sustentation from the blood. 



