Symptoms. In such a case the only definite symptoms are those of internal hemorrhage, pallor of the mucous membranes, gradually increasing weakness, vertigo, unsteady gait, and an early death. In more protracted cases slight jaundice, dullness, prostration, stupor, drooping of head, ears and eyelids, resting it on the manger or walls, muscular weakness, crossing of the front limbs, and it may be tenderness on percussion on the right side of the chest posteriorly. It resembles the coma or immobility of the horse but the patient backs more easily.
Cattle. In ruminants sharp pointed bodies passing from the rumen will occasionally penetrate the liver, and give rise to symptoms of hepatic disorder. Augenheister found in a cow dilatation of the larger bile ducts, which contained about 10 quarts of sand, that had apparently entered from the duodenum by the common bile duct which had an orifice of an inch in diameter.
Pig. The gall ducts of a pig’s liver, in the Veterinary College of Berlin contains a large amount of sand (Gurlt).
Dog. The liver is exceptionally perforated by sharp pointed bodies coming from the stomach. Cadeac and Blanc report three cases of needle in the liver. Blanc’s case had been killed because of old age; one of Cadeac’s showed symptoms resembling rabies.
Treatment of these cases would be very hopeless as nothing short of laparotomy and the removal of the foreign body would promise success.
TUMORS OF THE LIVER. NEW GROWTH.
Largely secondary, from stomach, intestine, lymph glands, spleen, pancreas; the hepatic tumor may be disproportionately large. In horse: sarcoma rapidly growing soft, succulent, slow-growing, fibrous, tough, stroma with round or spindle shaped cells and nuclei. Symptoms: emaciation, icterus, enlarged liver, rounded tumors on rectal examination. Melanoma, in old gray or white horses, with similar formations elsewhere; not always malignant. Lymphadenoma. Angioma. Carcinoma. Epithelioma, lesions, nodular masses, white or grayish on section, and having firm stroma with alveoli filled with varied cells with refrangent, deeply staining, large, multiple nuclei, cancerous cachexia and variable hepatic disorder. In cattle: sarcoma, adenoma, angioma, cystoma, carcinoma, epithelioma. In sheep: adenoma, carcinoma. In dog: lipoma, sarcoma, encephaloid, carcinoma, epithelioma. Wasting and emaciation, yellowish pallor, temporal atrophy, ascites, liver enlargement, tender right hypochondrium, dyspepsia, symptoms of primary deposits elsewhere.
The great quantity of blood which passes through the liver lays it open, in a very decided way, to the implantation of germs and biological morbid products. Hence tumors of the liver are largely secondary, the primary ones being found mostly in the stomach, intestine, abdominal lymph glands, spleen and pancreas. The primary neoplasm is often comparatively small, while the hepatic one supplied with a great excess of blood may be by far the most striking morbid lesion. The hepatic tumors are mostly of the nature of angioma, sarcoma, melanoma, adenoma, lipoma, cystoma, carcinoma, and epithelioma.
NEOPLASMS IN HORSES LIVER.
Sarcoma. This is usually a secondary formation from the primary tumors in the spleen and peritoneum, and it occurs as multiple masses throughout the substance of the gland. The liver is greatly increased in size, extending far beyond the last rib on the right side, and weighing when removed as high as 70 ℔s. (Mason), or even 88 ℔s. (Cadeac), in extreme cases.