This has been recorded by different observers and usually as the result
of some obstacle to the circulation, or of catarrh and obstruction of
the biliary passages. Morot saw it in young calves, which showed greatly
enlarged liver (in one case 24 lbs.) and kidneys, the former containing
numerous cysts and marked sclerous thickening around the vessels. This
advancing thickening of the connective tissue, causes increasing
firmness of the liver and absorption, distortion and diminution of the
lobules. Albrecht describes a chronic interstitial hepatitis with
caseated centres (nontuberculous) many of them an inch in diameter. The
liver is brown or grayish with whiter callosities which extend into its
substance and make points of attachment to the diaphragm or other
adjacent organ. The contrast between the fibrous layers and the hepatic
tissue has been likened to a checker board (Höhmann). The enlarged liver
may weigh 30 lbs.; in one remarkable case it weighed 300 lbs. (Adam).
The bile is of a light color and mixed with mucus.
_Symptoms._ The symptoms are indefinite: a gradually increasing
jaundice, the passage of yellowish red urine becoming more and more red
and albuminous, and finally coagulating on the walls of the urethra or
on the litter, chronic indigestion, salivation (Schäffer), weakness,
breathlessness and more or less fever may give indications of the
disorder. Höhmann failed to find tenderness of the right hypochondrium.
The disease is liable to go on to a fatal issue, so that it is often
sought to prepare the animal for the butcher.
_Treatment_ will follow the same line as in the horse. Green food,
pasturage, open air life, saline laxatives, and alkalies with a free use
of potassium iodide to check the sclerosis will be indicated.