On anthracosis or coal-miner's phthisis : the spurious melanosis of Carswell / by J. Warburton Begbie.

  • Begbie, James Warburton, 1826-1876.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On anthracosis or coal-miner's phthisis : the spurious melanosis of Carswell / by J. Warburton Begbie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    GxprGSsing sl coiifid-Giiti opinion on liG&id.. is of gTGatGr intorGst, howGVGr, and inorG immGdiatGly comiGctGd with thG subjGct of this papor, is tho fnrthor statomont by LaonnGc, at tliG samo placG, that ho has somotiniGS surmisod that tho black matter in question may in part at least proceed from the smoke of lamps and combustible bodies used for the purposes of warming and of lighting; and again, that in the lungs, as well as in the bronchial glands, of cottagers unaccus¬ tomed to watching or sitting up late at night; the pigmentary matter is either absent or present in very small amount. This experience, Laennec is careful to say, is not universal; for the discovery of pigment in considerable amount has on the other hand been occasionally made in the lungs of persons in no peculiar manner exposed to the causes just alluded to. The reader familiar with the illustrious work of Laennec will remember that, although in no degree detracting from the value of the ]3assage to which reference has now been made, there is in the chapter in which it occurs not a little confusion, occasioned by the want of a proper distinction, at the time impossible, between the true melanosis of the lung, an un¬ doubted neoplasm, or new formation of cancerous nature, and the pigmentary substance with which we are at present more immediately concerned. To the disease which is generally known under one or other of the names placed at the head of this paper, but which has also been described as Carbonaceous Bronchitis (Ur. Walshe); Black Phthisis (Dr. Makellar); Black Spit (J. B. Thomson); and Melanose du Poumon (Valleix), the attention of the profession was to a certain extent directed as early as 1813, by Dr. Pearson, writing in the Philosophical Transactions, ‘‘On the Colouring Matter of the Black Bron¬ chial Gland, and of the Black Spots of the Lungs;” but since that date the following important contributions regarding it have appeared:—“Report of a case of peculiar black infiltra¬ tion of the whole Lungs, resembling Melanosis,” by Dr. J. C. Gregory.'^ Article entitled “ Spurious Melanosis,” in the Cyclo¬ paedia of Practical Medicine, by Dr. Carswell. In the same author’s well-known work on Pathological Anatomy; Illus¬ trations of the Elementary Forms 0/Disease, there is a brief description of the appearances presented by the affected lungs; and likewise, under the head of Melanoma, plate 3, an illustra¬ tion giving a very correct notion of their universal black dis¬ coloration. “ On the Existence of Charcoal in the Lungs,” by Thomas Graham, F.R.S.j* “Cases of Spurious Melanosis of the * Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Yol. xxxvi., 1831. t Eodem Loco, Yol. xlii.