Next in order to the fatty liver are the infiltrations of the hepatic parenchyma by a coarser, gray, sometimes transparent, albuminous, lardaceous, or lardaceo-gelatinous, substance. This affection is found concurrent with constitutional disease of the vegetative system, especially with scrofulous and rickety disease, with syphilitic and mercurial cachexia, and it may consequently be congenital. It appears that it is occasionally developed as a sequela of intermittent fever in cachectic subjects.

The following are its anatomical characters: considerable increase of size and weight, with remarkable lateral development and flattening of the organ; smoothness and tenseness of the peritoneal investment, a certain degree of doughy consistency combined with hardness and elasticity, anaemia, pale, watery, portal blood; gray, grayish-white, or grayish-red color, tinged with yellow or brown; the surface of a section being smooth, and homogeneous, resembling bacon, and leaving but a slight fatty stain on the scalpel. Sometimes, however, there is an adipose deposit in the entire liver, or in certain parts of the organ, and the blade of the scalpel then shows the fatty appearance when a section is made.

In many cases the foreign substance is also deposited in the shape of white lardaceous spots, the edges of which are not distinctly circumscribed.

The spleen is very commonly affected in a corresponding manner; it is found much enlarged, and infiltrated by a similar substance (vide Spleen). Bright's disease of the kidneys and analogous renal affections are also very often complicated with the lardaceous and fatty liver.