Liver

[liv’-er) [AS., lifer, liver]. The largest gland in the body, situated on the right side of the abdominal cavity, just below the diaphragm, and forming an appendage of the digestive tract. Its functions are: the secretion of bile; the formation and storage of glycogen; the production, at least at a certain period of development, of blood corpuscles; the destruction of blood corpuscles;the formation of a large quantity of urea; the retention and destruction of certain poisonous substances absorbed from the intestinal tract. Anatomically, it consists of five lobes — the right, the left, the lobus Spigelii, the lobus quadratus, and the lobus caudatus. These lobes are made up of lobules or acini, and these again of hepatic cells, capillaries, arteries, veins, lymphatics, and biliary channels, each lobule being surrounded by connective ti ue. The weight of the liver is between 50 and 60 ounces. L., Albuminoid or Amyloid, one the seat of amyloid degeneration. L., Beaver tail, one the left lobe of which in form resembles a beaver’s tail. L., Biliary Cirrhotic, one the seat of chronic inflammation, the result of obstruction and distention of the bile-ducts. L., Cirrhotic, one the seat of chronic inflammation, with overgrowth of the connective ti ue and atrophy of the parenchyma. L., Fatty, one with marked fatty infiltration and degeneration. L., Hobnail. See Hobnail Liver. L., Gin-drinkers’, the liver of atrophic cirrhosis. L., Nutmeg, a condition of the liver occurring in heart-disease, fatty infiltration, and amyloid disease. The surface of a section has a peculiar mottled appearance, the center of the lobules being dark, the periphery light in color. L.-spot, chloasma. L., Syphilitic, one the seat of gummata, which on healing, leave scars, or of a diffuse inflammation that may lead to cirrhosis, with atrophy or, especially in hereditary syphilis, enlargement. L., Tight lace, one in which the right lobe is thickened vertically from compre ion, marked by the ribs, and atrophic from constant pre ure by tight stays. L., Waxy. See L., Amyloid. L.-wort. See Hepatica. 371