Biliary Cirrhosis in the Rabbit

The statement concerning biliary cirrhosis which is commonly found in text-books on pathology is to the effect that obstruction of the bile-duct without infection does not lead to cirrhosis of the liver. This is expressed by Mallory, 1 in a recent article on cirrhosis, as follows: "Apparently uncomplicated bile stasis does not result in any sclerotic process around the hepatic veins where the chief lesion is located and it certainly does not around the portal vessels." This may be true for man; yet, if it be true, the reaction or lack of reaction in the l iver would seem to form the only exception to the general rule that obstruction of the duct of a secreting gland leads to a (numerical) atrophy of the gland with secondary sclerosis of the organ. The liver in the rabbit forms no such exception. Ligation of the common bile-duct in the rabbit, without demonstrable succeeding infection, results in a cirrhosis of the liver. The experiments here reported, which bear upon this assertion. are a portion of a series undertaken for the study of the regenerative phenomena occurring in the liver subsequent to injury of the organ. It was hoped to ga in some information as to the factors which determine the variations in regenerative activity seen in different types of cirrhosis, in order to ascertain, if possible, why in some cases regeneration of the parenchyma is so marked a feature, while in others proliferation is apparently confined to the duct epithelium. Among the procedures employed to injure the liver was ligation