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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    obtained bear some relation to the circumstances of the case, and the very fact that the movement-registers cannot be directly connected with the extent of the disease of the lungs, as revealed by auscultation, may permit us to hope that they indicate something of the constitutional vigour of the patient, and something perhaps of his power of resisting the inroads of the disease. Many more cases will need to be measured by the three- plane stethometer before we can arrive at thoroughly trustworthy conclusions, respecting the meaning of all the variations of the movements which may be found in •phthisis. All that can be said at present is, that it is clear that these variations may become aids to us in our [judgment upon individual cases. There is, however, one precaution that must be taken in acquiring the needful records from which our conclusions are to be drawn, and that is, that the mensuration must in all the cases be performed at a time when the disease is not in an active state, i.e., when irritative fever and other signs of acute inflammation and irritation are not present. It must have occurred to most practitioners to have attended cases, in which abscess forming in the lung, as a result of scrofulous consolidation, has simulated rapid softening and disorgani- zation of the part, and the accompanying fever and emacia- tion may have caused grave apprehension of a speedy termination by death, and yet, in certain of these instances, after a more or less protracted discharge of purulent matter, the abscess has either healed or dried up, the patient has recovered, and sometimes for years has enjoyed a very considerable degree of health, and has returned to his ordinary avocations. In these difficult and doubtful cases, it is needless to say, that stethometry can afford little, if any, aid to prognosis ; but afterwards in judging of the progress towards recovery