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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    breath were entangled. The cases of whooping-cough were children, and therefore the deficiency noted in the organic matter given off by them may be due to age—and this is the more probable since the only healthy child's breath examined contained about the same quantity (0-275 of a milligramme) of organic ammonia, as in the cases of whooping-cough. In two cases of phthisis with abundant expectoration, the total ammonia was also less than in health, but in one case of this disease with abundant puru- lent sputa associated, however, with Bright's disease, a large amount of organic matter was given off. We cannot doubt, however, that the albuminuria which was present in this case had an influence upon the result. A portion of the ammonia was in fact due to urea or to some kindred substance ; and we may perhaps ascribe the general excess of organic matter to some peculiarity in the breath due to the kidney disease. It is in fact in kidney diseases that the largest amount of organic matter of all kinds is to be found in the breath. Seven cases suffering from these diseases are recorded. In three cases urea was found, in two it was not sought for and in two others it was absent. The free ammonia in all the cases is abundant; in two of them (Nos. 20 and 21) excessively so, and the organic ammonia is also large in amount. The total quantity of ammonia found is in excess in all the cases except in one (No. 27) a male, who was also phthisical and had much expectoration. In one case it rises as high as 0*9 milligrammes in 100 minims of fluid, and in another to 0'825.^ Probably if the sputa in these cases had been examined, a much larger pro- portion of matters decomposible by carbonate of soda would have been found. I would suggest that the pre- 1 These facts are opposed to the experience of Dr. Lionel Beale, who (p. 191), on Urinary Diseases, states that he has sevei-al times examined the breath of patients affected by kidney disease, and that he has not obtained indications of more NH., than in healthy persons.