228 DISEASE IN WILD MAMMALS AND BIRDS 
conditions it accumulates. In only one order is there any- 
noteworthy percentage of hemosiderosis, the carnivores, 
the remainder showing a very trifling incidence. 
Degenerations. 
Going further into the physicochemical alterations of 
the liver brings us to consideration of those changes 
knowai as degenerations — ^parenchymatous, fatty, hy- 
dropic, hyaline, all of which we shall group under one 
heading. They occur in a great variety of conditions and 
do not appear to be specific, nor as the records are 
analyzed do they appear to occur preeminently in any one 
disease of the lower animals. The percentages are how- 
ever higher for orders and families whose diet contains 
relatively more protein, carnivores, the higher mar- 
supials, accipitrine, and wading birds. 
Acute Atrophy. 
A very important degenerative disease of the liver is 
acute yellow atrophy or, better expressed, acute degenera- 
tive atrophy for it is a total destruction of the whole or 
large parts of the parenchyma. It is apparently toxic in 
origin being related to the toxemias of pregnancy, to 
certain organic and inorganic soluble poisons ; some cases 
arise without discoverable cause. We have seen no cases 
in the mammal but two in birds. Both were females, one in 
active ovulation, while the other had no related pathology 
and the condition of the ovaries could not be deter- 
mined since they had been destroyed after death by rats. 
The macroscopic and minute anatomy offers nothing new. 
Jaundice was present but not intense. 
Hepatitis. 
True inflammatory lesions are to be detined as some 
form of parenchymatous change to which are added con- 
gestion, infiltration of round or polynuclear cells, stagna- 
tion in the bile ducts or perhaps actual degeneration of 
