On diseases of the liver / [George Budd].

  • Budd, George, 1808-1882.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On diseases of the liver / [George Budd]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    blood is returned immediately to the vena cava, with the organs that become infected from cancer of the stomach, a part from which blood is returned to the portal vein. To take merely the cases recorded by the writers before referred to—Cruveilhier, Andral, and Farre. In the “ Anatomie Pathologique” of Cru- veilhier, there are, as before remarked, five cases, (Liv. xxiii. pl. 5, p- 1; id.p.2; id.p. 3; id. p. 4; Liv. xxxi. pl. 2. p. 8,) in which cancerous tumors of the liver were consequent on cancer of the breast. In all these cases, with the exception of one, (Liv. xxiii. pl. 5, p. 1,) in which the state of other organs is not mentioned, the lungs were infected, as well as the liver. The cancer-cells had to pass through the lungs, before they could arrive at the liver. But although cancer of the breast seldom causes cancer of the liver, without also causing cancer of the lungs, it not unfrequently gives rise to cancerous tumors in the lungs, without giving rise to any in the liver. In the Anat. Path. of Cruveilhier, three cases of this kind are recorded. (Liv. xxvii.pl.8, p.1; id. p.5; Liv. xxxl. pl. 2, p. 2.) Cruveilhier asks how it happens, that in some cases of cancer of the breast, secondary cancerous tumors form in the lungs, chiefly ; while in other cases, they form in the liver, chiefly? The circumstance may be accounted for from the variable size of cancer-cells, which are in some cases so small, as to pass readily through the lungs ; in others, not. When cancer originates in the stomach, secondary cancerous tumors form in the liver, before they form in the lungs; un- doubtedly, from the blood infected with the cancerous matter having to pass through the liver first. Indeed, it very seldom happens that the lungs become affected at all. As before re- marked, all the cancerous matter brought in the portal blood, is usually detained in the substance of the liver, as are the globules of pus in purulent phlebitis, instead of passing through to con- * taminate other organs. In the works already referred to, there are thirteen cases in which cancerous tumors. in the liver seemed to be secondary to cancer of the stomach. In nine of these cases, the liver was the only organ, besides the stomach, in which can- cerous tumors were found. In the remaining four cases, there was cancerous disease of some part of the mesentery, or of the glands about the aorta, as well as of the liver. It is a striking fact, that in not one was any cancer remarked in the lungs.