Volume 1

Biographia medica, or, Historical and critical memoirs of the lives and writings of the most eminent medical characters that have existed from the earliest account of time to the present period; with a catalogue of their literary productions / By Benjamin Hutchinson.

  • Hutchinson, Benjamin.
Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biographia medica, or, Historical and critical memoirs of the lives and writings of the most eminent medical characters that have existed from the earliest account of time to the present period; with a catalogue of their literary productions / By Benjamin Hutchinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    526/536 (page 506)
    5°<* H U N T E R. than is frequently met with, although it might proba- bly exceed that which occurs in the moft healthy ftate of thefe parts. The heart itfelf was very fmall, appearing too little for the cavity in which it lay, and did not give the idea of its being the effect of an unufual degree of contraction, but more of its having fhrunk in its fize. Upon the under furface of the left auricle and ventri- cle, there were two fpaces nearly an inch and a half fquare, which were of a white colour, with an opaque appearance, and entirely diftinCl from the general fur- face of the heart: thefe two fpaces were covered by an exudation of coagulating lymph, which at fome former period had been the refult of inflammation there. The mufcular ftrudture of the heart was paler and loofer in its texture, than the other mufcles in the body. There were no coagula in any of its cavities. The coronary arteries had their branches, which ra- mify through the fubftance of the heart, in the ftate of bony tubes, which were with difficulty divided by the knife, and their tranfverfe fe&ions did not collapfe, but remained open. The valvulas mitrales, where they came off from the lower edge of the auricle, were in many places offified, forming an imperfectly bony margin of different thickneffes, and in one fpot fo thick as to form a knob but thefe offifications were not continued down upon the valve towards the chor- dae tendineas. The femilunar valves of the aorta had loft their natural pliancy, the previous ftage to becoming bone j and in feveral fpots there were evident offifications. . The aorta immediately beyond the femilunar valves had its cavity larger than ufual, putting on the appear- ance of an incipient aneurifm; this unufual dilatation extended for fome way along the afcending aorta, but did not reach fo far as the common trunk of the axil- lary