The Free Press
THE FREE PRESS by HILAIRE BELLOC London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Ruskin House 40 Museum Street W.C 1 First published in 1918 (All rights reserved)
proper dialysis and free secretion. The organ, at first, becomes large
from the distention of its vessels, the surcharge of fluid matter and
the thickening of tissue. After a time, there follows contraction of
membrane, and slow shrinking of the whole mass of the organ in its
cellular parts. Then the shrunken, hardened, roughened mass is said to
be 'hob-nailed,' a common, but expressive term. By the time this change
occurs, the body of him in whom it is developed is usually dropsical in
its lower parts, owing to the obstruction offered to the returning
blood by the veins, and his fate is sealed.... Again, under an increase
of fatty substance in the body, the structure of the liver may be
charged with, fatty cells, and undergo what is technically designated
fatty degeneration."
HOW THE KIDNEYS SUFFER.
"The kidneys, also, suffer deterioration. Their minute structures
undergo fatty modification; their vessels lose their due elasticity of
power of contraction; or their membranes permit to pass through them the
albumen from the blood. This last condition reached, the body loses
power as if it were being gradually drained even of its blood."
CONGESTION OF THE LUNGS.
"The vessels of the lungs are easily relaxed by alcohol; and as they, of
THE FREE PRESS by HILAIRE BELLOC London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. Ruskin House 40 Museum Street W.C 1 First published in 1918 (All rights reserved)