The physical diagnosis of diseases of the lungs / by Walter Hayle Walshe.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physical diagnosis of diseases of the lungs / by Walter Hayle Walshe. 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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    but the precise limits and the precise degree of these maladies are disclosed by the alterations referred to, which, for these reasons, constitute tlieir Physical Signs. Physical signs are, then, the true revealers of the nature, extent, and degree of organic affections, and may be regarded as the means or instruments of pursuing morbid anatomy on the living body. The means by whicli the existence and nature of physical signs are discovered, are called Physical Methods of Diagnosis; and these methods vary with the properties, position, and functional relations of the organs examined. The diseases of the respiratory organs are among those of which the physical signs are best under- stood and most readily ascertained; the methods employed in their detection are: — I. Inspection ; II. Application of the Hand; III. Mensuration; IV. Percussion; Y. Auscultation; VI. Succession. These methods are, as nearly as is possible, ap- plied to the organs themselves of which we desire to ascertain the condition, — to the external surface corresponding to them, when inapplicable to them- selves. But the absence or presence of disease in the lungs, and, if it exist, its nature, may sometimes be indirectly inferred by employing these methods in VII. The Determination of tiie Situation of SURROUNDING PARTS AND ORGANS,— which may consequently be considered an additional method of physical diagnosis. [§ 2.]