On some forms of sudden death, and sudden death in general / by Alex. Ogston, M.D.

  • Ogston, Alexander, Sir, 1844-1929.
Date:
[1869], [©1869]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some forms of sudden death, and sudden death in general / by Alex. Ogston, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    28/30 (page 28)
    fibrinous. These thrombi in the heart and pulmonary artery do not distend the cavities in which they he; even in tlie most advanced cases, they merely fill them. In a few of the autopsies the pulmonary veins were also filled with thrombi, which were continuous with that in the left auricle; but, as a rule, the development of thrombus on the arterial side of the lungs is very limited indeed, and confined almost entirely to the auricle and ventricle. The extensive development of thrombosis is attended with a markedly oedematous condition of the lungs, a state usually present to a more or less marked extent in even slight cases, although some- times it has been found wanting. In this (Edematous state the lungs are bulky, pitting on pressure, rather heavy and solidified, and from their cut surfaces air and serum can with ease be expressed. In the more marked cases the serum is clear and yellowish, and the whole pours out iu abundance, frothing like champagne; where less oedema is present, or where the lungs are congested, the serum is pinkish, tinged with blood. Such a process as this naturally requires a little time, a few hours or so, for its production; and hence it is much more frequent in gradual deaths, however unexpected they may have been, or however sudden they may seem to the friends and neighbours, than in those where the very mode of death indicates that it must of necessity have been rapid. Out of 98 cases of drowning, it was met with but once, and in an individual drowned in this wise. He was a farm servant, and had been in bad health for some time. Walking near a pond one day he was taken ill, and falling into it was drowned before he could be rescued. In him the thrombosis may have been forming before he fell into the pond. The table of cases of thrombosis shows that where it occurred tlie death was caused— 14 times by Thrombosis itself. Injuries. Pneumonia. Pericarditis. Poisoning. 1 >> Exposure to cold. Childbed disease. Liver disease. Starvation. Brain diseases. 0 Meningitis. Aneurism. A])oplexy. Pidmonary apoplexy. 2 1 .■Viul 1 Erysipelas. Scarlatina.