case of a
private of twenty-six who was wounded in a fray near Paducah, Kentucky,
by a conoid ball, which passed through the liver. The ball was cut out
the same day. The patient recovered and was returned to duty in May,
1868. Patzki mentioned a private in the Sixth Cavalry, aged
twenty-five, who recovered from a gunshot wound of the abdomen,
penetrating the right lobe of the liver and the gall-bladder.

Resection of the Liver.--It is remarkable to what extent portions of
the liver may be resected by the knife, cautery, or ligature, and the
patient recover. Langenbuch records a case in which he successfully
removed the greater portion of the left lobe of a woman of thirty. The
lobe had been extensively deformed by tight lacing, and caused serious
inconvenience. There was considerable hemorrhage, but the vessels were
secured, and the woman made a good recovery. McWhinnie, in The Lancet,
records a case of dislodgment of an enlarged liver from tight lacing.
Terrilon mentions an instance in which a portion of the liver was
removed by ligature after celiotomy. The ligature was removed in seven
days, and the sphacelated portion of the liver came off with it. A
cicatrix was completed at the end of six weeks, and the patient, a
woman of fifty-three, made an excellent recovery. Bastianelli
discusses those cases in which portions of the liver, having been
constricted from the general body of the organ and remaining attached
by a pedicle, give rise to movable tumors of the abdomen. He records
such a case in a woman of thirty-seven who had five children. A piece
of liver weighing 500 grams was removed, and with it the gall-bladder,
and the patient made an uninterrupted recovery. Tricomi reports a case
in which it was found necessary to remove the left lobe of the liver.
An attempt had been made to remove a liver-tumor the size of a fist by
constricting the base with an elastic ligature. This attempt was a
failure, and cure was also unsuccessfully attempted by wire ligature
and the thermocautery. The growth was cut away, bleeding was arrested
by the thermocautery and by iron-solution, the wound entirely healed,
and the patient recovered. Valerian von Meister has proved that the
liver has marvelous powers of regeneration, and that in rabbits, cats,
and dogs, even three-fourths of the organ may be reproduced in from
forty-five to sixty-five days. This regeneration is brought about
chiefly by hypertrophy of the lobules.

Floating