HEALTH NOTES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1514, 7 March 1901, Page 61

HEALTH NOTES

ABOUT THE LIVER (By Dr Andrew" Wilson.) It must be admitted that while the liver is responible for many of the ailments that affect uis- w r e in turn do- not exercise ' that care over our food and habits which tends to prevent the liver from failing in the discharge of its. duties to l us. This organ is one of the most important . included within our frames. It w r eighs between three and four pounds, and 1 lies, sheltered under the lower ribs of the right side. Close by, in the middle of the body, as it were, is the stomach, and on the left of the stomachi lies the spleen. Below the stomach, we find the pancreas, or “sweetbread/' another organ closely associated with the work of digesting the food. The duties which the liver performs in our economy are cf a varied nature. Commonly we speak of it as “making bile.” This is quite true, but if we mean thereby that the making of bile is the end of the liver’s work, then the expression is wrong, because the manufacture of bile represents one result of the liver, and does not represent the ■whole work itself. A chimney gives off smoke, but this action does not indicate the purpose which the fire below it really subserves. The fire is to give heat, and the emission of smoke is only a result of the combustion of the fuel wherewith the fire is fed; and so it is with the liver. The making of bile is really in one sense like the w r ork of the chimney in smoke emission. It does not represent the real work of the organ at all. THE LIVER’S WORK.. The fact is that the liver discharges several functions, all of which have for their object some very definite end in respect of our healthy existence, andi this is why derangement of the liver has such a serious effect On our wellbeing. Thus, the liver acts as a purifier of the blood. It removes from the blood certain waste matters represented by the bile, but bile happens to be a waste product which is utilised in the body’s functions. It is poured on the food after it leaves the stomach, and assists largely in the digestion of the fats we eat. It breaks down the fat globules and emulsifies them, and fits them otherwise for passing into the blood. So that bile is a useful enough product in, its way, but when it is absorbed into the blood, it gives us jaundice, and thus introduces us to the part it plays as a cause of disease. The liver’s work otherwise is more important perhaps. It receives from the stomach the foods which have been therein digested. These foods are of the beef juice and white of egg order. We call them nitrogenous foods, and they go chiefly to build up our frames, and) to renew our nerves, muscles, blood and the tissues of our body at large. These foods passed into the liver from the stomach are called peptones. THE LIVER AND OUR FOOD. It is one of the most curious facts of

our life that the peptones which the stomach has passed on to- the liver, and which represent the nitrogenous foods changed by the stomach, should in themselves be poisonous to us. That this is a fact is proved Dv the observation that if they are allowed to pass into the blood they cause symptoms which resemble thosc\ of poisoning. Injected into the blood of a dog, peptones from its stomach make it very ill, or may kiil it. Now, in ourselves, if the peptones are not altered by the liver, and pass into our blood, we find symptoms of nausea., sickness, vomiting, headache, diarrhoea, and other signs which closely resemble those produced by animal poisons at large. The symptoms are precisely those we see in a bilious attack, SO' that one cause of biliousness, and I should say a common cause, is the liver’s failure to do its duty by the stomach foods, or peptones, which, absorbed into the blood, cause a form of poisoning. Contrast with this result the normal and natural work of the liver. When it is doing its duty properly it receives the peptones, changes and alters them, and hts them for passing into the l blood in such a form that they will nourish us properly. This work of the liver we might compare to that of a filter, which separates off from, our foods substances that are calculated. to. injure us. It stands, at it were, between the blood on the one hand and the body on the other. BILIOUSNESS. Besides this, the liver stores up starchy matters obtained from our food, and it pays these out in the blood in the form of sugar, which noes to feed our muscles, and is one of the foods on which we do our work. If this sugar is given off from the liver in too great quantity, we then suffer from the- disease known as diabetes, and 1 a. very serious ailment it is. Some physicians think the liver in health gives. off no. sugar at all, and that its starch is really converted into fat. This last- result may be quite possible, in part at least, even if so much of the sugar be also paid out in the muscles ; but at least we see hcv many actions the liver discharges for us, actions all-important as bearing on our health. Biliousness, if it is a very annoying ailment, however, and if it causes some of us a great deal of money, is not in itself a. dangerous affection. We should regard rc in the two ways of prevention and cure. With the view of preventing them, people subject to bilious attacks should be very -careful in the matter of their diet. They should avoid any excess of those, foods—butcher ♦meat . especially—which form the peptones with which the liver has to deal. Fish and other light foods are preferable if biliousness threatens, and rice, tapioca., and other farinaceous articles should be taken. It is chiefly our. meat foods that cause biliousness when token in excess, because they are the source of the peptones. THE! TREATMENT OF -BILIOUSNESS. Bilious people should take plenty of exercise. A sedentary life always favours derangements of the liver, and if a man is tied to his desk or his shop, he can easily manage, as a rule, to have the necessary walking or cycling exercise after his hours of work are over. One fertile cause of biliousness is constipation, but this condition may actually arise from the liver failing in its work, because if bile be suppressed, the action of the bowels is intefered with. Bile is a natural purgative, and we know that one of its uses is to cause the bowel to contract more energetically and to propel the food: which is being digested onwards. In the same way, it amts as an aperient, and, therefore, constipation often precedes a bilious attack because of the suppression of the bile. The best treatment represents a very old form of medical advice. First of all give a purgative. Take some Epsom Salts or other saline aperient, and clear the digestive system in this way, and then attend to the diet as I have said 1 . Often a smart purgative will stop an attack. If not, then at bedtime take a couple of blue pills, and a black draught in the morning. .This is the old-fashioned treatment to which I alluded. Some people prefer to take two tabloids containing E'uonymin (a drug which has an action on the liver) instead of the blue pills, but the black draught or, better still, a good dose of. Apenta Water must be taken in the morning as well. This water, in its way, is an excellent and safe aperient, and bilious people cannot do better than take a little each morning when they are threatened with an attack.