Two cases of partial obstruction of a bronchus by a foreign body : with remarks on the operation of tracheotomy for its removal / by Thomas Bryant.

  • Bryant, Thomas, 1828-1914.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two cases of partial obstruction of a bronchus by a foreign body : with remarks on the operation of tracheotomy for its removal / by Thomas Bryant. 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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    there was a little empliysema about the wound. The boy^s respiration and pulse were normal; temperature 98'6°. On the third day the wound was dressed and was found to have nearly healed. The same kind of dressing was applied. The boy had still a little cough. On the fourth day no abnormal symptoms existed, con- sequently the steam tube was given up. On the fifth day the boy was taken out of his tent and placed in a ward bed, and by the ninth day he was con- valescent. He left the hospital on September 12th, quite comfortable, and when I saw him a month later was as well as he had ever been. Remarks.—Gases, of partial obstruction of a bronchus, in which the foreign body, by its gravity, is of sufficient weight to maintain its position, and yet is neither of such a size nor of such a form as to mechanically prevent the ingress and egress of air into the lung for respiratory purposes, are of sufficient rarity to justify their record ; and the lessons to be learned from the two examples I have to-night brought under your notice seem worthy of our consideration. In both cases the initial paroxysm of respiratory diffi- culty which followed the introduction of the foreign body into the trachea was brief and feebly marked. In Case 1 the man awoke gasping for breath, but speedily recovered, and it was not till he recalled the fact that he went to sleep sucking a button that he was led to suspect that he might have swallowed it, or that it may have travelled downwards into his chest. In Case 2, that of the boy, the inhalation of the foreign body did not cause any special symptom beyond a moment- ary cough. In neither case was there, on the patients first coming under notice in the hospital—in one twenty-four and in the other four hours after the accident—any laryngeal or respiratory symptom to support the diagnosis of foreign body in the trachea or one of its branches, which the his-