The liver, in the above-mentioned slave, was turgid and plump on its outside, but on its concave surface, two thirds of it were of a deep black colour, and round the gall bladder it seemed to be mortified and corrupted.
The duodenum was lined on its inside, near the gall bladder, with a viscid ropy bile, like that which has been described. Its villous coat was lined with a thick fur or slime, which, when scraped or pealed off, the other vascular and muscular coats of the gut appeared red and inflamed.
The omentum was so much wasted, that nothing but its blood-vessels could be perceived.
The stomach was inflamed, both on its outside and inside. It contained a quantity of bile of the same consistence, but of a blacker colour than that which was found in the gall bladder. Its villous coat, like that of the duodenum, was covered with fuzzy and slimy matter. It moreover appeared to be distended or swelled. This peculiarity in the inner coat of the stomach was universal in all the bodies that were opened, of persons who died of this disease.
The lungs, instead of being collapsed, were inflated as in inspiration. They were all over full of black or livid spots. On these spots were to be seen small vesicles or blisters, like those of an erysipelas or gangrene, containing a yellow humour.
The blood-vessels in general seemed empty of blood, even the vena cava and its branches; but the vena portarum was full and distended as usual. The blood seemed collected in the viscera; for upon cutting the lungs or sound liver or spleen, they bled freely.
The brain was not opened in this body, but it was not affected in three others whose brains were examined.
Dr. Mackittrick, in his inaugural dissertation, published at Edinburgh in the year 1766, “De Febre Indiæ Occidentalis, Maligna Flava,” or upon the yellow fever of the West-Indies, says, that in some of the patients who died of it, he found the liver sphacelated, the gall bladder full of black bile, and the veins turgid with black fluid blood. In others he found the liver no ways enlarged, and its “texture only vitiated.” The stomach, the duodenum, and ilium, were remarkably inflamed in all cases. The pericardium contained a viscid yellow serum, and in a larger quantity than common. The urinary bladder was a little inflamed. The lungs were sound.