SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
375 
DISEASES OF THE LIVER AS A DIRECT CAUSE OF 
INTESTINAL DISTURBANCES. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen: —In compliance with the request of our honor - 
able President, and in order to assist in a small way in making our meetings as inter¬ 
esting as possible, I have, to the best of my ability prepared a short thesis on “Diseases 
of the Liver as a direct cause of Intestinal Disturbances,” which I will now submit to 
you for your consideration. 
This is a subject, gentlemen, which I have paid particular attention to in the last 
couple of years, and owing to its insidious and complex nature, and it being a subject 
which is so difficult to ameliorate and which in my experience does not readily yield 
to treatment, I naturally feel very anxious and ambitious to learn, from the exchange 
of ideas of those present here to-night, more about the pathology and treatment of in¬ 
testinal disturbances. With this end in view I have attempted to advance a few ideas 
in which I hope to show that the majority of intestinal diseases are due to hepatic 
disturbance. 
In order, therefore, to approach this subject in a comprehensive manner, we will 
first take up the consideration of the liver and its physiological properties. 
As you all are aware, the liver being the largest as well as one of the most complex 
and important glands in the animal economy, and as it has some very essential and 
rather complex functions to perform, it is very easy to understand how any deviation 
from its normal condition will cause derangements of the alimentary tract. 
The most important and one of the chief functions, the liver has to perform is the 
secretion of bile, the only one which pertains to the subject under consideration. 
There are, however, other functions, notably the one that controls the effect upon the 
blood during its transit through the hepatic circulation, whereby the blood is fitted fol¬ 
ds subsequent purposes in the animal economy. 
The secretion of bile is continually going on, but it appears to be greatly retarded 
during the period of fasting, and accelerated on the prehension of food, as has been 
shown by different experiments made by establishing a fistulous opening on the outside, 
it was noticed that during the period of fasting there was scarcely any bile discharged, 
but upon partaking of food an abundance of bile was discharged in a very few 
minutes. 
The purpose served by the secretion of bile may be said to be of two principal 
kinds:—Excrementitious and digestive. From the peculiar manner in which the liver 
is supplied with much of the blood that flows through it, it is possible that this organ 
is excretory, not only for such hydro-carbonaceous matters as may need expulsion 
from any portion of the blood, but that it serves for the direct purification of the stream 
which arriving by the portal vein has gathered up various substances which may need 
be expelled almost immediately after their absorption, for it is easily conceivable that 
things may be taken up during digestion which are not only unfit for the purpose of 
nutrition but which would be positively injurious if allowed to mingle with the general 
mass of blood. 
The liver therefore may be supposed, placed in the only road by which such 
matters can pass unchanged into tne general current, to jealously guard against further 
progress of effete matters and turn them back again into an excretory channel. One 
