Clinical lecture on dysnoea, especially on the dyspnoea of asthma and bronchitis, and the effects of nitrites upon it / by Thos. R. Fraser.

  • Fraser Thomas R. (Thomas Richard), Sir, 1841-1920.
Date:
[1887?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lecture on dysnoea, especially on the dyspnoea of asthma and bronchitis, and the effects of nitrites upon it / by Thos. R. Fraser. 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.

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    chest is auscultated, and conspicuously present along with the dyspnoea. The first observation I made with these objects in view was in 1880, on a patient twenty-two years of age, of markedly nervous diathesis, who had suffered from asthma for several weeks. The chest was auscultated during an asthmatic paroxysm of moderate severity, and it was found that cooing, whistling and creaking rales were abundantly present. She inhaled during fifty seconds a few minims of nitrite of amyl. Two minutes after the inhalation had been commenced, the rales had entirely disappeared, and her breathing had become quite easy. In another minute the rales had returned and the breath- ing had become more difficult. After an interval of six minutes, when both the rMes and dyspnoea were present in their original abundance and severity, she again inhaled nitrite of amyl, this time for thirty seconds, and in forty- five seconds after commencing the inhalation the rales had entirely disappeared and the breathing had become perfectly unembarrassed, In five minutes afterwards, the original state of breathlessness, with its accompanying auscultatory phenomena, had returned. After an interval of ten minutes, nitrite of amyl was a third time inhaled, with essentially the same results as on the previous two occasions. This observation showed in a very striking manner that nitrite of amyl very rapidly caused every sensation of dyspnoea to disappear. The coincident effects of the highest interest were that so long as the dyspnoea was removed, and only so long, were the cooing, whistling, and creaking sounds silenced, and so long also were there present those well-known modifications in the pulse char- acteristics which indicate dilatation of blood-vessels. Since this observation was made I have accumulated much evi- dence of a similar kind. In a few other cases nitrite of