An inaugural dissertation on pulmonary consumption.

  • Delafield, Edward, 1794-1875.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural dissertation on pulmonary consumption. 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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    Foreign bodies conveyed accidentally into the lungs has produced the same effect. Morton relates a curious case where three nails had passed into a person's trachea and destroyed him, by inducing Consumption. Bayle also enumerates a form of Phthisis, which he calls cancerous, arising inpatients in whom the cancerous disposition has become constitutional. It is, however, extremely rare; only three cases having occurred to him among the 900 whom he had examined. Haemoptysis and tubercles are mentioned by most au- thors as exciting causes of Consumption, and remain to be examined. So frequently did Dr. Cullen consider Haemoptysis the cause of Phthisis, that he placed the lat- ter disease in his Nosology, merely as a consequence of the former. The impropriety of this arrangement has been already touched upon. On this subject, I would suggest the following facts. Haemoptysis occurring in persons not predisposed to Con- sumption, except the quantity of blood lost be so great as to produce it by mere debility, very frequently may be easily cured without danger of any consequent disease. Indeed not only in such cases consumption is not induced by it, but that disease has actually been prevented, by the occurrence of hasmorrhage from the lungs, relieving that inflammation, which like the inert physician, by with- holding the lancet, would have suffered to destroy his Uiem by falls, bruises and strains, received a year or two before it made its ap- pearance.