24 HOURS' URINE. Quantity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372·00 c.c. Specific gravity . . . . . . . . . 1028 Reaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . acid (?) Solids (total) . . . . . . . . . . 19·038 grammes. Urea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11·160 " Uric acid . . . . . . . . . . . . 0·139 " Resin, and mucus . . . . . . | Bile pigment, and acids . . | Urohæmatine . . . . . . . . | . . 5·441 " Tyrosine, and leucine . . . | Inorganic salts . . . . . . . . . 2·298 " ====== During the night before her death, the patient {38} aborted, and lost a considerable quantity of blood by the vagina. The whole duration of the disease was merely six days, and the more urgent symptoms only manifested themselves two days before the fatal termination. After death the liver was found to be very small in size, not exceeding, as was supposed, 1½ pound in weight. It was deeply stained yellow, and its cells were found to be small, and broken up; not an entire cell could be detected by either Dr. Wilks or myself--nothing, indeed, but a quantity of _débris_ of hepatic tissue, and fat. The gall-bladder was contracted, and contained only a little mucus; the urinary-bladder was empty. Although jaundice the result of acute atrophy of the liver, might be thought to be a typical example of jaundice arising from a suppression of the biliary function--the diminution in secreting substance naturally inducing a diminution in secreting power--I have, as was before said, been led to view it differently; because, although less bile than usual is secreted, there is nevertheless nothing like an entire suppression of the biliary function, as is proved,-- Firstly,--By the absence of pipe-clay stools. Secondly,--By the deep staining of the hepatic tissue with bile pigment, just as occurs in jaundice the result of obstruction. {39} Thirdly,--By the presence of the biliary acids in the urine. Fourthly,--and lastly, the violent symptoms of bile-poisoning lead to the same conclusion, for it is not bile pigment, but the bile acids, that induce the fatal symptoms of bile-poisoning.[13] [Footnote 13: Six grains of pure glycocholate of soda killed a small dog, into whose femoral vein I injected it, in the course of two hours. In experimenting on animals, I have made the curious observation, that although bile has the property of retarding or arresting putrefaction, both in the intestinal canal, and out of the body, yet, when injected into the subcutaneous cellular tissue of a healthy animal, it causes the surrounding tissues to decompose, and become foetid, and an artificial disease is thereby set up, whose most peculiar feature is the engendering of a rapid putrefaction of the body after death.] CLASS B. THE MECHANISM OF JAUNDICE ARISING FROM THE RE-ABSORPTION OF THE SECRETED, BUT RETAINED BILE.