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INFLAMMATION OF THE LIVER.

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shall only observe, that in all of them mild and gentle applicationsare the safest, as strong diuretic medicines, or things of an irritat-ing nature, generally increase the danger. I have known somepersons kiJJ themselves by introducing probes into the urinary pas-sages, to retnove, as they thought, somewhat that obstructed thedischarge of urine, and others bring on a violent inflammation ofthe bladder, by using strong diuretics, as oil of turpentine, &c.for that purpose.

Inflammation of the Liver.

The liver is less subject to inflammation than most of the otherviscera, as in it the circulation is slower ; but when an inflamma-tion does happen, it is with difficulty removed, and often ends insuppuration or scirrhus.

Causes. — Besides the common causes of inflammation, we mayhere reckon the following, viz. excessive fatness, a scirrhus of theliver itself, violent shocks, from strong vomits when the liver wasbefore unsound, an adust or atrabiliarian state of the blood, anything that suddenly cools the liver after it has been greatly heated,stones obstructing the course of tha bile, drinking strong winesand spirituous liquors, using hot spicy aliment, obstinate hypo-chondriacal affections, long-continued intermittent and remittentfevers, contusions, blows, and in five cases out of six the partialapplication of cold or wet when the body is heated or over fatigu-ed with exercise, &c.

Symptoms. — This disease is known by a painful tension of theright side under the false ribs, attended with some degree of fever,a sense of weight, or fulness of the part, difficulty of breathing,loathing of food, great thirst, with a pale or yellowish colour of theskin and eyes.

The symptoms here are various, according to the degree of in-flammation, and likewise according to the particular part of theliver where the inflammation happens. Sometimes the pain is soinconsiderable, that an inflammation is not so much as suspected ;but when it happens in the upper or convex part of the liver, thepain is more acute, the pulse quicker, and the patient is oftentroubled with a dry cough, a hiccup, and a pain extending to theshoulder, with difficulty of lying on the left side, &c.

This disease may he distinguished from the pleurisy, by the painbeing less violent, seated under the false ribs, the pulse not so hard,anil by the difficulty of lying on the left side. It may be distin-guished from the hysteric and hypochondriac disorders by the de-gree of fever with which it is always attended.

In warin climates* this viscus is more apt to be affected with in

* Inflammation of the liver> and the diseases consequent thereupon, are indeed affections more frequently to be met with in warm climates than in cold ones, particuterljin the East and West Indies, where few Europeans can reside for any length of time■without being attacked by them. The liver in warm climates seems to be the seat ofvijsease, nearly in the same proportion that the lungs are in Great Britain. Both acuteand chronic hepatitis are frequently met with in persons who come to Europe from thaEast and Wast Indies -, and in those who have been affected when in those climatesÜicy are very apt to recur by the application of causes which would be likely to havoiditlerei't effect upon any one else. Eo.