VOL. XL.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 231 



obturated, by which some anatomists have supposed the gall to flow back from 

 the hepatic ducts; and on dissection, Mr. A. traced a trunk, like to that which 

 Bidloo and Winslow observed in man; and resembling that formed by several 

 branches in the liver, and discharging itself into the vesica. He would gladly 

 have traced this further, but the time allowed for dissection did not permit him 

 to pursue this inquiry. 



The ductus communis choledochus was found empty, and opening, as usual, 

 into the cavity of the duodenum ; but the cystic duct was so compressed by the 

 bag, that nothing could pass through it. The spleen, pancreas, and all the 

 other viscera, were in a natural state, except that some of them had changed 

 and altered their natural situations. 



On the whole it appears, 1st, That the animal functions have been in nowise 

 vitiated by some of the viscera having been displaced; and notwithstanding that 

 for 25 days, the discharge of the bile through the wound had been so great, 

 that little was left to pass into the duodenum, yet he digested his food well. 

 The stools continued regular, till within a few days before death, and even to 

 the last the faeces all along retained theii* natural colour. 2dly, It may be ob- 

 served, that the jaundice was not occasioned by the obstruction of the cystic 

 duct, though that is apprehended as a common cause of this malady; for this 

 obstruction must have been of many years standing, and this patient's jaundice 

 was of a very late date. Nor was his jaundice owing to any retention of the 

 bile in the porus biliarius, from the tumour continually pressing that duct, and 

 so obstructing the free discharge of the bile, from the glands of the liver into 

 the duodenum and gall-bladder ; nor even to the strong compression and total 

 obstruction of some, and almost all the biliary ducts, viz. the porii biliarii, the 

 ductus hepaticus, the hepatico-cystic, and the ductus-cysticus, and communis 

 choledochus, the principal of which are seated in the concavity of the great 

 lobe of the liver, under the pressure of this great and hard tumour, and under 

 its increase for near 14 years together, obstructions and compressions generally 

 accounted as primary and idiopathic causes of the jaundice, because no distemper 

 like the jaundice had appeared in this patient, till within a few months before his 

 death, and no true jaundice till within a few weeks, and only then as the ab- 

 scess formed in the neighbourhood of the liver had brought an inflammation 

 there; but as all the symptoms of his jaundice began to wear off, soon after the 

 pus had got a vent, viz. as the inflammation of the liver brought on occasionally 

 by a suppuration in the neighbourhood wore off, and some days before the 

 bursting of the vesica fellis, it does not appear unlikely, that this inflammation 

 of the liver was the pathognomonic cause of the jaundice here; which inflam- 

 mation of the liver, as it was accidental, so the jaundice occasioned by it, was 



