A concise and practical treatise on the principal diseases of the air-passages, lungs, and pleura / by Alfred Catherwood.

  • Catherwood Alfred.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A concise and practical treatise on the principal diseases of the air-passages, lungs, and pleura / by Alfred Catherwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    27/238
    depend either on the absence of air from the air- cells, or pleuritic effusion. The respiratory mur- mur can be (in a case of acute mucous catarrh), for the most part, restored by the act of coughing to the parts from which it had disappeared, when the impediment is owing to an accumulation of mucus obstructing the bronchial tubes; if, however, the absence of the murmur be caused by a thickened state of the bronchial mucous membrane, cough- ing, of course, will produce no such effect. Rale Sonore, Rale Sibilant, Rale Muqueux.— The rale sonore and the rale sibilant usually appear very early in this disease, but the rale muqueux only during its second stage. The character of the rale sonore is extremely variable ; sometimes it resembles the snoring of a person asleep ; at other tihies the cooing of a wood-pigeon, or the sound produced by the fourth string of a tenor- violin ; occasionally a deeper sound is heard, which has been compared to the third string of a vio- loncello. The rale sonore, when once completely esta- blished, is permanent for a considerable length of time, as it depends either on a tumefaction of the mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes, or an alteration in their form, by which a contraction of their calibre is produced. The degree of con- traction may, generally, be pretty fairly estimated by the sharpness or flatness of the sound; for instance, if the sound be sharp, the tubes them-