Hepatic Coma

Abstract

PROLONGED coma has been recognized as a frequent terminal event of both acute hepatic necrosis and chronic hepatic fibrosis. Frerichs,¹ in 1860, described the terminal mental changes in patients with acute yellow atrophy and with cirrhosis of the liver:Cases have occurred to me in which individuals who for a long period have suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, have suddenly presented a series of morbid symptoms which are foreign to that disease. They have become unconscious, and have been afterwards seized with noisy delirium, from which they passed to deep coma, and in this state have died. In most . . .