Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/120

 or even only functionally, affected for a length of time, the other is not slow to exhibit some morbid change, and there is no fact better established than the tendency of hepatic enlargement, to induce congestion or excitement of the brain. How often, in the detail of morbid appearances of hydrocephalus, do we find it recorded, that the liver is either inflamed, enlarged, or studded with tubercles? How often, among the symptoms of that disease, do we see it ourselves, and find it confirmed by others, that the bile is unnatural, either in quantity or quality? Green bile is often found in the gall bladder and ducts, and the action of a brisk purgative, especially of calomel, will often dislodge morbid secretions from the liver, and from the bowels, and the consequence of such free evacuations, is seen in the restoration of the healthy functions of the liver, and along with it a frequent disappearance of that formidable array of symptoms which so closely simulate hydrocephalus. Every practitioner who has had much experience in the treatment of children, must have remarked the closest sympathy betwixt the chylopoietic viscera and the brain, insomuch that a morbid condition of one will influence the functions of the other; and there is need of some caution to distinguish between cause and effect, lest, in attending to the one, we may overlook the other. It fortunately happens that mercurial preparations, which are so useful in counteracting hydropic effusion, are equally calculated to improve the action of the liver, and, though prudence will generally point out the expediency of combining other remedies with them, where the strength of the child will admit