CHRONIC ATROPHY OF THE LIVER.
Chronic Atrophy: In old horses: in right and spigelian lobes; others show hypertrophy. In ruminants, omnivora and carnivora: in areas compressed by tumors or parasites. Perihepatitis. Sclerosis. Remedy causes if possible. Fatty Degeneration: Oil globules in liver cells, pathological when they destroy the protoplasm. In ducks and geese on forced feeding. Causes: poisoning by phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, lead, phenol, iodoform, alcohol; excess of fat in food, spoiled fodders, colchicum autumnale, yellow lupins, bacteria, hemorrhages, inflammations, tumors, parasites; improved meat producing breeds, old animals, hot stables. Lesions: liver enlarged, pale, yellow, bloodless, knife in cutting is smeared with fat, oily stain on paper, liver cells enlarged, protoplasm replaced by fat or oil; may be circumscribed. Symptoms: obesity, over-fed in fats and starches, of fattening breed, kept in confinement, in hot moist environment, if fed certain poisons, with costiveness and indigestion, no endurance, short winded, slight icterus, scanty urine, little urea, later, emaciation, palpation of enlarged liver. Treatment: send to butcher, pampered horses, cows from swill stable, a run at grass, with shade trees, a poor pasture, salines, cholagogues, mineral acids, bitters, iron with alkalies, currying, massage, douches.
Acute yellow atrophy has been referred to under parenchymatous hepatitis but a chronic atrophy is also met with in all domestic animals.
In old horses it affects, by preference the right and spigelian lobes, the portal circulation of which is less direct because of the veins of supply leaving the parent trunk at right angles (Leblanc), and because these lobes are more exposed to compression by solid accumulations in the double colon (Kitt). In such cases a compensatory hypertrophy of the left and middle lobes is often observed.
In ruminants the lesion is often circumscribed to the areas that have undergone compression by tumors or parasites (echinococcus, actinomycosis), and there may be compensatory increase elsewhere in the organ.
In swine, dogs and cats the same conditions are operative. In all alike perihepatitis may be a causative factor, and sclerosis (cirrhosis), with contraction of the fibrous hyperplasia may also operate.
Symptoms are very obscure and treatment unsatisfactory unless the active causes can be recognized and arrested.