Observations on the curability of consumption : by a new, safe and painless mode of treatment; illustrated in selections from three hundred and ten late cases.

  • Hall, W. W. (William Whitty), 1810-1876.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the curability of consumption : by a new, safe and painless mode of treatment; illustrated in selections from three hundred and ten late cases. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    power is so diminished, that the patient is no longer capable of active exertion or exercise. The tuberculous deposits being increased in size and number, are clustered together, and run- ning into each other, form an excavation, into which the air has now free admission, and acts on its raw and unhealed sides. From this, result fresh inflamation, new supplies of blood, and new depositions of tubercular matter ; the cough further increases in severity and frequency; the expectoration is changed in character, and consists of pus, mucus, contain- ing softened, or occasionally solid tuberculous deposits, shreds of lymph, and sometimes particles of pulmonary tissue in a foetid state. The fits of coughing are now distressing, espe- cially after lying down, or getting up, perhaps because the change in position alters the situation of the puriform matter remaining in the cavity, and thus exposes a new source of irritation. Should the disease be principally confined to one lung, the patient generally lies on that side, by which means the sound lung, which is now called upon to perform the greater part of respiration, is left unimpaired by the weight of the body, and can thus be more fully and easily dilated. But the alleviation is merely slight and temporary: fresh col- lections of tubercles burst, and additional exacerbations are thereby excited, the night perspirations break forth heavy and profuse, the debility and emaciation progress in proportion to the other symptoms, the lining membrane of the air passages becomes thickened, or ulcerated, or even studded with tuber- cles, and the cough is incessant, the extremities swell, and the powers of the stomach failing, its contents are frequently rejected by the violent fits of coughing. The intestines share in the general state of the disease, the internal membrane of which becoming irritated, or ulcerated, diarrhoea alternates with or accompanies the profuse evacuation of the skin. The hectic flush is increased, the eye assumes a pearly whiteness, and has a certain wildness of expression; the brain supplied with improperly aerated blood is also affected, and mental excitement, common from the commencement, occasionally