On stethometry : being an account of a new and more exact method of measuring & examining the chest, with some of its results in physiology and practical medicine : also an appendix on the chemical and microscopical examination of respired air / by Arthur Ransome.

Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On stethometry : being an account of a new and more exact method of measuring & examining the chest, with some of its results in physiology and practical medicine : also an appendix on the chemical and microscopical examination of respired air / by Arthur Ransome. 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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    It is quite possible that Case 3, which finally became phthisical, was from the outset tuberculous in its nature ; but this fact would not in any way detract from the im- portance of the indications given by the stethometer. If confirmed by subsequent experience, it would simply show that tubercular pleurisy affects the movements of the thorax more decidedly than the simple disease, and would thus assist not only the prognosis, but also the diagnosis of the case. It may be remarked that the forward or outward motions are probably of chief value as guides to our judgment on these points. The excessive upward motion may be some criterion of the compensatory power possessed by the muscles of the thorax, but it also may be a sign of the tightness of the bands which are impeding the expansion of the chest-wall in other directions. PHTHISIS. The prognosis in phthisis is well known to be extremely ifficult, especially as to the probable duration of life under he various states of the disease. After a certain degree of isorganisation has been produced in the lung, it may be asy to pronounce the sentence of incurable upon it; or again there may be symptoms of acute tuberculosis or certain complications which will enable us to predict a rapid course and a speedy ending, but there remains a very large number of cases, by far the largest part of consump- tives—of whom it is most difficult to prophesy. It has been well remarked that in phthisis, there are usually traces of several independent forms of chest dis- order associated in each case. Inflammations of various kinds, acute, chronic, scrofulous, or perhaps syphilitic; con- M 2