298 BOVINE PATHOLOGY. 



strengtli supported, and subsequent feeding carefully 

 regulated. In the former case recovery is hopeless. Any 

 one accustomed to examine the changes which the liver 

 undergoes as a result of disease will be aware of the 

 very considerable absorption of liver substance which 

 may take place as a result of parasitic invasion or of 

 morbid deposits, without the function of the organ being 

 materially interfered with. It seems as if each lobule 

 were an independent organ, and not in any way concerned 

 in the state of its fellows. A direct consequence of this 

 is that very extensive changes of this nature may take 

 place, andno appreciable signs of them be manifested during 

 life; of these changes tubercular are most frequent. We 

 find also on record ^'osseous deposits," which, however, 

 hardly answer this description. Thus, in a case the 

 post-mortem examination of which reads very like that of 

 traumatic pericarditis, Mr. Younghusband describes the 

 liver of a milch cow, " which was three times the size of 

 one in a normal state, containing in its substance an im- 

 mense number of calcareous deposits, of the size of a 

 horse chestnut, which, when crumbled betwixt the finger 

 and thumb, gave a feeling of sand or grit. There were 

 some dozens of these deposits, but in none did I perceive 

 anything like the suppurative process." These were 

 perhaps calcified hydatids, but the case was peculiar. 

 The enormous extent to which this organ may become in- 

 vaded by Echinococcus veterinorum is satisfactorily illus- 

 trated by a case recorded by Messrs. East and Steel in 

 the ^Veterinarian^ for 1878. The specimen came from the 

 Yale of Aylesbury, where parasitic disorders are prevalent. 

 Considerable diminution of the secreting liver structure 

 results in advanced cases of invasion by Fasciola hepatica, 

 in consequence of thickening of the walls of large and 

 small bile- ducts, the result of irritation. 



Kamollissement (softening of the liver). — Enlargement 

 with structural change does not seem so frequent as we 

 would be inclined to expect from the frequency of exces- 

 sive fattening of the ox, together with the want of exercise 

 during preparation for exhibition or sale. A good illus- 



