DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 213 



** Such has ever been the want of trust in Xature, and the over- 

 trust in art, prevalent among the members of the medical profes- 

 sion, that the field of natural observation has been, to a great extent, 

 hidden from them — hidden either actually from their eyes or vir- 

 tually from their apprehension. The constant interference of art, 

 in the form of medical treatment, with the normal processes of 

 disease, has not only had the frequent effect of disturbing them in 

 reality, but, when it failed to do so, has created the belief that it 

 did so, leading, in either case, to an inference equally wrong — the 

 false picture, in the one instance, being supposed to be true; the 

 true picture, in the other, being supposed to be false." 



In all cases of liver disease, it is good policy to change the diet, 

 and offer the animal green vegetables — sliced carrots, and grass 

 if it can be had. In all cases of chronic disease of the liver, a 

 run ut grass is the most potent remedy for the cure of the same. 



It was formerly supposed that the function of the liver was 

 merely to eliminate bile, but modern physiologists have discovered 

 that the blood itself is changed while circulating through that 

 gland, which elaborates fibrine from albumen, and fat from sugar. 

 The liver stores up fatty matter, so that, should the food be deficient 

 in fat, the liver yields up what it contains. It is very curious to 

 notice the peculiarity in the circulation of the liver. It is supplied, 

 like other organs, with arterial blood for its own support ; and it 

 also receives an immense quantity of venous blood through veins 

 commencing on the gastro-intestinal cavity, which terminate in a 

 vessel named vena porta. This vessel, on entering the liver, ram- 

 ifies in various directions, like an artery, and ultimately terminates 

 in the veins peculiar to the liver ; so that the blood, instead of flowing 

 directly from the stomach and intestines, is made to circulate through 

 the liver, and thus the various transformations are effected. The 

 liver must, therefore, perform the double function of secretion and 

 excretion. It secretes bile, and excretes carbon and hydrogen from 

 the system. Should an animal labor under diseased lungs, he may, 

 under proper medical treatment, recover, provided the liver be 

 healthy. This organ can, for a time, eliminate carbon and hydro- 

 gen ; but, instead of passing off as they do from the lungs, in the 

 form of carbonic acid, they accumulate in the liver, in the form 

 of fat, or else the liver increases to an extraordinary size In 

 Strasburg they prepare a favorite dish from the livers of geese, 

 artificially enlarged by the cruel process of depriving them of 



