The mechanism of respiration from the orthodiagraphic standpoint / J.F. Halls Dally.

  • Dally, John Frederick Halls, 1877-1944.
Date:
[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The mechanism of respiration from the orthodiagraphic standpoint / J.F. Halls Dally. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    results which I have attained by the use of the Orthodiagraph in the study of that intricate subject, the Mechanism of Respiration, in the hope that they may be not without interest to the present Congress. In studying changes which occur in the shape, size, and position of the internal organs as a result of their functional activity, previous observers have worked at a disadvantage in that practi- cally all the methods used by them in their researches have involved more or less disturbance of the normal arrangement of parts and therefore of function. During the past ten years move- ments of the thoracic contents have been studied by means of the observation of their moving shadows on the fluorescent screen. But these X-ray methods, although affording useful indications, have done no more than approximate to exact measurement of the movements of the internal organs owing to the distortion caused by shadow-magnification. If, however, one can not only see what is going on inside the trunk, but can also accurately measure the vital movements great light is immediately thrown upon the phenomena of respiration and circulation. In the Orthodiagraph I have found a machine which fulfils these conditions. The form of instrument I have used is the one invented by Dr. Groedel of Bad Nauheim. By means of this instrument it is possible, with almost mathe- matical accuracy, te measure motionless objects which lie in a plane parallel with the vertical transverse plane of the body, and to measure moving objects with greater approximation to exactitude than can be attained in any other manner. The explanation is as follows: In a fluorescent tube, when the electrons shot off from the kathode suddenly are intercepted by the antikathode, they set up electric vibrations in the ether precisely similar to those of light, save that their wavelengths are much shorter. By cutting