hobnail liver

plural hobnail livers

1. archaicmedicineA shrunken liver, hard, and covered with hobnail-like projections (nodules), resulting from cirrhosis.

   1 more example

   let the teacher show the relation between intemperance, crime, and immorality, and how intemperance results from imitation, habit, disease, and poverty, rather than spend her time in endeavoring to detail the dire effects of alcohol upon every tissue of the body, and to picture upon the child's mind what a drunkard's stomach looks like, or what a hob-nail liver is.

   1888 August 28, Popular Science Monthly, Teaching Physiology in the Public Schools