Liver

“ To you, Mademoiselle, I say that whatever lesions you may have in your liver, your organism is doing what is necessary to make the lesions disappear every day, and by degrees as they heal over, the symptoms from which you suffer will go on lessening and disappearing. Your liver then functions in a more and more normal way, the bile it secretes is alcaline and no longer acid, in the right quantity and quality, so that it passes naturally into the intestines and helps intestinal digestion. ”

“ The fatty liver is well known to be a liver containing in its substance more than the normal amount of fat; a morbid condition intentionally induced in certain animals for the purpose of gain. In man the liver often becomes surcharged with fat, giving rise to obstruction of the liver. The term, obstruction, conveys an idea of the disease arising from this cause. The liver secretes bile, which, in order to reach the duodenum, flows through a small duct. ”

“ The liver within you produces, then, the same effect that a cat, lying on the pit of your stomach would do, and the result is that you have the nightmare.
The liver is of a deep-red color. It is an accumulation of excessively minute atoms, which, when united, form a somewhat compact mass, and within each of which there is a little cell, invisible to the naked eye, where an operation of the highest importance to our existence is mysteriously carried on. ”

“ The liver cells absorb and further oxidize and combine them into nitrogenous waste, which the kidneys throw off in urea.
The liver and the spleen also break up the pigment or coloring matter of the red blood corpuscles. As they become worn out, they are retired in the liver and the spleen from the circulation. The iron is retained by the liver cells and the remainder is thrown off from the liver, in the bile.
The liver is often called the watch dog of the body, because it is on guard for all poisons which pass through it in the blood. ”

“ Nature is loath to cast out any material as useless, and the function of the liver by which constituents of the blood, otherwise useless, are utilized for further digestive operation in the form of bile, is one of the most striking instances of her economy. ”

“ The liver, that manufactures bile from blood, is itself made from blood; and so of other things; even the pipes in which the blood runs all over your body, and the heart that pumps it into them, are made, as I have before told you, from the blood. ”

“ The liver is the most complicated gland in the body (Figure X.) . The bile duct (b.d.) branches again and again, and ends at last in the final pits, the lobuli (lb.) , which are lined with secretory epithelium, and tightly packed, and squeeze each other into polygonal forms. The blood supply from which the bile would appear to be mainly extracted, is brought by the portal vein, but this blood is altogether unfit for the nutrition of the liver tissue; for this latter purpose a branch of the coeliac artery, the hepatic serves. ”

“ Because the liver secretes a fluid to assist in the digestion of food. The liver is a gland—a similar organ to the glands of the mouth—and it forms bile in the same manner that they form the salivary juice. Only the liver is a much larger gland, and a much greater quantity of blood passes through it. ”

“ That the liver performs an important part in the fabrication of the blood seems probable from all the veins of the stomach and upper portion of the intestines passing to the liver, whereby it is to be supposed, that a considerable proportion of the nutritive juices will be conveyed to it; and from this viscus being proportionally large in the fœtus when it is much required to form blood, and cannot be supposed necessary for any other purpose. The ancients taught that the liver, by its attractive power, attracts the chyle from the stomach ”

“ The liver receives almost all the blood from the stomach, the intestines, the pancreatic gland, the spleen, partly from the liver itself, and partly from the abdominal air-sacs. This blood enters into the liver through the vena portalis dextra, the vena portalis sinistra, and the vena portalis propria. ”

“ Thus, by nature and in all men alike, the heart is stronger than the liver at attracting what is serviceable to it and rejecting what is not so; similarly the liver is stronger than the intestines and stomach, and the arteries than the veins. In each of us personally, however, liver has stronger drawing power at one time, and the stomach at another. For when there is much nutriment contained in the alimentary canal and the appetite and craving of the liver is violent, then the viscus exerts far the strongest traction. ”

“ The stomach is not the only part of the body concerning which we lack proper confidence. Next to it the liver is the most maligned organ in the whole body. Although the liver is about as likely to be upset in its process of secreting bile as the ocean is likely to be lacking in salt, many an intelligent person labels every little disturbance "biliousness" and lays it at the door of his faithful, dependable liver. ”

“ The bile, which may be looked upon as a waste product of the liver, not being removed, the other functions of the liver are disturbed. Assimilation becomes imperfect, we find lithates appearing in the urine; the circulation in the liver itself may be altered, and thereby the whole circulation in the stomach and intestines may be impeded, for it must be remembered that all the blood from the stomach and intestines has to pass through the liver before it again reaches the general circulation. ”

“ DISEASES OF THE LIVER. In veterinary and medical works the diseases of the liver have been accorded a minor place, ill in keeping with the great physiological importance of the organ. If the function of the liver were circumscribed by the mere secretion of bile there would be some excuse for the apparent neglect, as the gland is so deeply situated and so much enveloped in surrounding organs that physical exploration is difficult and somewhat unsatisfactory, and the one symptom of jaundice was long relied on as indicating hepatic disorder. ”

“ From the use of intoxicants, the liver becomes at first irritated, then inflamed, and finally seriously diseased. The fine bands, or septa, which serve as partitions between the hepatic lobules, and so maintain the form and consistency of the organ, are the special subjects of the inflammation. Though the liver is at first enlarged, it soon becomes contracted; the secreting cells are compressed, and are quite unable to perform their proper work, which indeed is a very important one in the round of the digestion of food and the purification of the blood. ”

“ Causes of Liver Disorders.—Is it any wonder, then, that with such abuses as overeating and drinking, especially of those foods rich in fats and carbohydrates which depend upon the liver for their availability in the body, Nature cries aloud for help and for the comparative rest of this, her largest organ? ”

“ The liver, on the contrary, remains at rest, and is never seen to be dilated and constricted. Lastly, if no one denies the possibility of the whole of the ingested juices passing through the liver, in man, oxen, and the larger animals generally, in order to reach the vena cava, and for this reason, that if nourishment is to go on, these juices must needs get into the veins, and there is no other way but the one indicated, why should not the same arguments be held of avail for the passage of the blood in adults through the lungs? ”

“ Large as the liver is, it hangs suspended to a mere point of the diaphragm, and shakes about with even the slightest movement of the body. It is partly on this account that many people do not like to sleep lying on the left side, especially after a good dinner, because in this position the liver weighs upon and oppresses the stomach, like a stout gentleman asleep in a coach who falls upon and crushes his companion at every jolt of the vehicle. ”

“ The liver also produces certain bodies, as urea, which play a very important part in metabolism, and it also serves as a large depot for glycogen, the stored sugar of the body. The liver forms a large amount of glycogen, and stores it up for the wants of the body. ”

“ The Liver.—Below the diaphragm on the right and extending across above the stomach, resting in a way upon the transverse colon and the small intestine, is the liver, the largest gland in the body. It is dark reddish-brown in color and is larger in proportion in the child than in the adult. The upper surface is convex and lies in contact with the diaphragm, while the lower surface is concave to fit over the organs beneath. With a full breath it comes downward and forward, with the edge against the abdominal wall, and can be easily felt. ”

“ Furthermore, the liver has an important function in connection with the excretion of broken-down bodily tissue, converting this dead matter into a form in which it can be filtered out of the blood by the kidneys. ”

“ Its secretion becomes changed from a bright yellow to a green or black, and from a thin fluid to a substance resembling tar in its consistence. There soon follows also an enlargement [10, L] of the liver, and a change in its organic structure. I have met with several cases in which the liver has become enlarged from intemperance, so as to occupy a greater part of the cavity of the abdomen, and weighing from eight to twelve pounds, when it should have weighed not more than four or five. ”

“ Where the liver is primarily affected, small doses of quicksilver act in a wonderful and a prodigious manner. How the stomach, when wrong, disturbs the head, is apparent to every one. How a faulty action of the liver disturbs the head is also well known; but the liver, in an especial manner, disturbs the head. ”

“ It is a fountain of gall in the garden of paradise. It poisons life. Doctors know nothing whatever about bile, and liver-medicines are a superstition. He who shall discover a way to eradicate bile from the system will be a great moral reformer. Every sin I ever committed in my life took its rise in my liver. I believe the liver to be an interpolation in the original man. ”

“ On examination the liver is found to be enormously enlarged, extending perhaps to the umbilicus or even lower. The surface of the organ is smooth; the edge, at first rounded and prominent, as the liver begins to contract becomes sharp and distinct and can be readily grasped between the fingers, the swollen organ feeling hard and resistant. ”

“ A needle that's found in the liver whether it's entered whole or broken - if its blunt end is toward the beast's cavity outwards it's treif, even if it's all buried in the flesh of the liver, for we are concerned it entered through the esophagus to the intestines and exited the intestines to the beast's cavity and pierced it from there and entered in the liver, for if it entered through the bronchiae its blunt end would be unable to pierce it. ”

“ For a long time it was thought, and, indeed, some people still think, that bile exists pre-formed in the blood, and that the liver only excretes it, as the kidneys excrete the urinary ingredients. Another class, running to the opposite extreme, believe that the liver is not merely the excretive, but also the formative organ of the bile. ”

“ This palsy of the liver is known from these symptoms, the patients have generally passed the meridian of life, have drank fermented liquors daily, but perhaps not been opprobrious drunkards; they lose their appetite, then their flesh and strength diminish in consequence, there appears no bile in their stools, nor in their urine, nor is any hardness or swelling perceptible on the region of the liver. ”

“ If this duct be compressed, the flow of bile is impeded, and the result is uneasiness and disease. The liver is traversed by a vast number of arteries and veins, through which, in a condition of health, the blood finds a ready passage. ”

“ Eolis has no liver. With so much stomach it can carry on the process of digestion-without the aid of that organ, so troublesome to man and beast. A row of hepatic cells extending part way along the intestine represents the rudiment of a liver, or its vestige.
Where are the lungs? Nowhere—or, rather, everywhere. No part is specialized and set apart for aërating the blood. In the vital economy of this sea-slug, there is but little division of labor. ”