A practice of physic: comprising most of the diseases not treated of in "Diseases of females," and "Diseases of children" (Volume 2).

  • Dewees, William P. (William Potts), 1768-1841.
Date:
1830
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practice of physic: comprising most of the diseases not treated of in "Diseases of females," and "Diseases of children" (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Sect. I. Pneumonia, or Peripneumonia. 1284. We shall under this head confine our considerations to an inflammation of the substance of the lungs. The older writers, indeed almost all, from Hippocrates downwards, comprehend under the term pneumonia every inflammatory affection of the chest. Hence, pneumonia has been divided into a variety of species, as the seat, kind, and degree of pain may exist—and thus we have peripneumony, pleurisy, pericarditis, paraphre- nias, &c. 1285. When the substance of the lungs was the seat of the inflammation, the disease was called peripneumonia;* when it occupied the pleura, it was called pleuritis; when the heart was the besieged organ, it was called carditis; when>the diaphragm was the suffering part, it was called paraphrenias; and even in- flammations of the mediastinum, and pericardium, were looked upon as entitled to separate appellations. Hence, arose names for the combinations of the different parts that might be labour- ing under inflammation, and looked upon as complications of disease-.—such was the origin of the terms pleuro-peripneumonia, or peripneumo-pleuritis, &c. and which combinations unques- tionably occasionally exist. 1286. Doubtless the inventors of these divisions thought much was gained, by this attempt at locating the seat of the af- fection; though modern experience does not confirm any great practical utility in this attempt at accurate location. We say this attempt at accurate location; for it is nothing more than an attempt; since we are not in possession of such diagnostics as • Both Laennec and Andral look upon peripneumonia to be au inflammation of the air cells of the lungs, the internal surface of which first secretes a muco- sanguineous, and then a purulent fluid. Dr. Williams defines peripneumony to be an inflammation of the parenchyma of the lungs. We very much prefer the accounts of the late French pathologists of this disease, to any of the older writers on this subject; indeed we might say of the modern writers; for, until Dr. Forbes and Dr. Williams' works made their appearance, very lit- tle advantage has been taken of the discoveries in pathology by the French school, by the British physicians. In Wilson Philip's work on Sympathetic Fever, the names of Laennec or Broussais, if we recollect rightly, are not even mentioned; we are altogether at a loss to account for this.