Resection of the Liver

Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
by George M. Gould, M.D., Walter L. Pyle, M.D.

(Page 33 of 42)

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 liver is a rare malady in which the liver forms an abdominal prominence that may be moved about, and which changes its situation as the patient shifts the attitude. The condition usually arises from a lax abdominal wall following repeated pregnancies. The accompanying illustration exhibits a typical case verified by postmortem examination.

Hypertrophy of the Liver. The average weight of the normal liver is from 50 to 55 ounces, but as noted by Powell, it may become so hypertrophic as to weigh as much as 40 pounds. Bonet describes a liver weighing 18 pounds; and in his "Medical and Surgical Observations," Gooch speaks of a liver weighing 28 pounds. Vieussens, the celebrated anatomist, reports an instance in which the liver weighed 20 pounds, and in his "Aphorisms," Vetter cites a similar instance. In 1811 Kraus of Germany describes a liver weighing 25 pounds; modern instances of enlarged liver are too numerous to be quoted here.

Rupture of the gall-bladder, although generally followed by death, is not always fatal. In such cases bile is usually found in the abdominal cavity. Fergus mentions a case in which, after this accident, the patient was considered convalescent and was walking about, when, on the seventh day, peritonitis suddenly developed and proved fatal in two days. Several cases of this accident have been reported as treated successfully by incision and drainage (Lane) or by inspiration (Bell). In these cases large quantities of bile escaped into the abdominal cavity. Peritonitis does not necessarily follow. Cholecystotomy for the relief of the distention of the gall- bladder from obstruction of the common or cystic duct and for the removal of gall-stones was first performed in 1867 by Bobbs of Indianapolis, but it is to Marion Sims, in 1878, that perfection of the operation is due. It has been gradually improved and developed, until today it is a most successful operation. Tait reports 54 cases with 52 perfect recoveries. Cholyecystectomy, or excision of the gall-bladder, was first practiced in 1880 by Langenbuch of Berlin, and is used in cases in which gall-stones are repeatedly forming. Ashhurst's statistics show only four deaths in 28 cases.

At St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in London, is a preserved specimen of a gall-bladder which had formed the contents of a hernial sac, and which, near the fundus, shows a constriction caused by the femoral ring. It was taken from a woman of forty-five who was admitted into the hospital with a strangulated femoral hernia. The sac was opened and its contents were returned. The woman died in a few days from peritonitis. The gall-bladder was found close to the femoral ring, and showed a marked constriction. The liver was misshapen from tight lacing, elongated and drawn downward toward the ring. There was no evidence that any portion of intestine or other structure besides the gall-bladder had passed through the ring.

The fatality of rupture of the spleen is quite high. Out of 83 cases of injury to this organ collected by Elder, and quoted by MacCormac, only 11 recovered; but the mortality is less in punctured or incised wounds of this organ, the same authorities mentioning 29 recoveries out of 35 cases. In his "Surgery" Gooch says that at the battle of Dettingen one of Sir Robert Rich's Dragoons was left all night on the field, weltering in his blood, his spleen hanging out of his body in a gangrenous state. The next morning he was carried to the surgeons who ligated the large vessels, and extirpated the spleen; the man recovered and was soon able to do duty. In the Philosophical Transactions there is a report of a man who was wounded in the spleen by a large hunting-knife. Fergusson found the spleen hanging from the wound and ligated it. It separated in ten days and the patient recovered.

Williams reports a stab-wound of the spleen in a negro of twenty-one. The spleen protruded, and the protruding part was ligated by a silver wire, one-half of the organ sloughing off; the patient recovered. Sir Astley Cooper mentions a curious case, in which, after vomiting, during which the spleen was torn from its attachments, this organ produced a swelling in the groin which was supposed to be a hernia. The vomiting continued, and at the end of a week the woman died; it was then found that the spleen had been turned half round on its axis, and detached from the diaphragm; it had become enlarged; the twist interrupted the return of the blood. Portal speaks of a rupture of the spleen simply from engorgement. There was no history of a fall, contusion, or other injury. Tait describes a case of rupture of the spleen in a woman who, in attempting to avoid her husband's kick, fell on the edge of the table. There were no signs of external violence, but she died the third day afterward. The abdomen was found full of blood, and the spleen and peritoneal covering was ruptured for three inches.

Splenectomy, excision of the spleen, has been performed a number of times, with varying results, but is more successful when performed for injury than when for disease. Ashhurst has tabulated a total of 109 operations, 27 having been for traumatic causes, and all but five having terminated successfully; of 82 operations for disease, only 32 recovered. Vulpius has collected 117 cases of splenectomy, with a death-rate of 50 per cent. If, however, from these cases we deduct those suffering with leukocythemia and lardaceous spleen, in which the operation should not be performed, the mortality in the remaining 85 cases is reduced to 33 per cent. Terrier speaks of splenectomy for torsion or twisting of the pedicle, and such is mentioned by Sir Astley Cooper, who has found records of only four such cases. Conklin reports a successful case of splenectomy for malarial spleen, and in reviewing the subject he says that the records of the past decade in operations for simple hypertrophy, including malaria, show 20 recoveries and eight deaths. He also adds that extirpation in cases of floating or displaced spleen was attended with brilliant results. Zuccarelli is accredited with reporting two cases of splenectomy for malarial spleen, both of which recovered early. He gives a table of splenectomies performed in Italy, in which there were nine cases of movable spleen, with two deaths; eight cases of simple hypertrophy, with three deaths; 12 cases of malarial spleen, with three deaths; four cases of leukemia and pseudoleukemia, with two deaths. In his experiments on rabbits it was proved by Tizzoni, and in his experiments on dogs, by Crede, that an individual could live without a spleen; but these observations were only confirmatory of what had long been known, for, in 1867, Pean successfully removed a spleen from a woman of twenty. Tricomi reports eight cases in which he had extirpated the spleen for various morbid conditions, with a fortunate issue in all but one. In one case he ligated the splenic artery. In The Lancet there is an account of three recent excisions of the spleen for injury at St. Thomas Hospital in London, and it is added that they are among the first of this kind in Great Britain.