A treatise on the diseases of the chest and on mediate auscultation / by R.T.H. Laennec ; translated from the latest French edition, with notes and a sketch of the author's life, by John Forbes.

  • Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826.
Date:
1832
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases of the chest and on mediate auscultation / by R.T.H. Laennec ; translated from the latest French edition, with notes and a sketch of the author's life, by John Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    117/774 (page 89)
    ference to the powdered root of belladonna, in the dose of half a grain or a grain, repeated at such intervals as the severity of the suffocation and the patient's strength seem to require. In two cases I employed no other means than the emetic tartar, given in large doses, as will hereafter be particularly described in the chapter on peripneumony. In one case the catarrh was complicated with oedema of the lungs. The other was a woman twenty-four years of age, of a robust con- stitution ; this patient, although apparently almost expiring when she came into the hospital, was out of danger in twelve hours. The other patient also recovered, but more slowly *. * I am not sure whether our author, in the four preceding sections, has not con- veyed to the reader a general impression of less severity in. the diseases treated of, than the inflammation of the mucous membrane of the bi-onchia often exhibits. And, if this be so, I suspect that the cause will be found in his determination to describe the affections under the name catarrh and not bronchitis. I think the impression would have been more clear and forcible, although the delineation might not have been at all mqre accurate, had bronchitis been taken as the genus, and the varieties of catarrh above described given as species of this. It is no doubt true, as remarked by the author, that catarrh frequently forms the shade between in- flammation and congestion, and that in certain cases of catarrh it is very doubtful if there is really any inflammation of the mucous membrane. But it is equally true, that very unequivocal and violent inflammations of this membrane do exist, exclusively of those of the croupy or plastic kind. And the history of the disease delivered by our author, seems to me defective in not containing a distinct and separate account of this severe and highly inflammatory variety. The attention of the reader seems too much directed to the kind of secretion, and too Httle to the actual disease of the membrane, the cause of this. These remarks apply most forcibly to the affections described in the last section under the name of suffocative catarrh, which can only be considered as an accidental modification of the kinds previously described, and ought not, therefore, to have been noticed as constituting a distinct species. This, indeed, is admitted by the author himself in respect of all the varieties included under this title, except the last, the acute suffocative catarrh of adults and children. This variety of bronchitis has been noticed by many writers under different names. For a very complete history of all the varieties of bronchitis, and a pretty complete and accurate account of the opinions of preceding authors, I would refer to the work of Dr. Hastings formerly quoted, to Dr. Badham's Essay ore Bronchitis, and to the 2nd volume of Andral's Chnique Medicale. The disease described by Dr. Millar, ( Observations on the Asthma and on the Hooping Cough, by John Millar, M.D. 1769.) under the name of Asthma, and which occurred as an epidemic among children in the border counties of England and Scotland in the year 1755, was evidently that species of bronchitis, described by our author as the acute suffocative catarrh. Several well-marked and well-described cases of the suffo- cative catarrh, with the appearances on dissection, are detailed by the late Mr. Cheva- lier in the Lond. Med. and Phys. Journal, vol. vii. and many valuable observations, of a similar kind, are scattered through the various periodical journals ai\d transac- tions published in this country. Traiisl.