Foreign bodies in the air passages / By J. Mason Warren, M.D.

  • Warren, Jonathan Mason, 1811-1867.
Date:
1847?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foreign bodies in the air passages / By J. Mason Warren, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/16 (page 4)
    surement it was ascertained to be two thirds of an inch in length and half an inch in breadth. The patient recovered without any bad consequences. Remarks.—The rupture of the lung did not present any subsequent symptoms, which could be referred to these organs, and therefore there must be some hesitation in deciding upon the seat of this accident. In all probability it took place at the root of the Jung in one of the larger bronchial tubes, and the air made its way out of the chest without im- plicating the pleural cavity. A similar rupture I have once before ob- served in croup—the neck and whole side of the chest becoming em- physematous, with an immediate relief to the breathing, as in the pre- sent case. The small tumor that appeared on inspiration is not so easily ex- plained. Whether it was cellular texture filled with air, or a portion of the lung, we could not determine. At a subsequent date to the operation, having procured some garden beans of a similar kind to the one removed, | immersed them in water of the temperature of the body, and found that in forty-eight hours they were increased in bulk to more than double, and some to treble the natural size. ‘This fact fully demonstrates, that when substances which are liable to be enlarged, by the heat and moisture of the body, are in- troduced into the air passages, no hope can be entertained of their spon- taneous expulsion. And the danger of an occurrence like the present, where death would have been inevitable if speedy relief had not been at hand, would lead us not to delay the operation, especially when it can probably be so much facilitated by the use of the inhalation of ether. II. Horse-shoe Nail in the Bronchus. On May 10th, 1846, a little boy; between 2 and 3 years old, son of Mr. Dwyer, of Upton, Mass., was brought to me by its parents, with the suspicion of its having a nail in the lungs. The account they gave of it was as follows. Three weeks ago the child came into the house from a blacksmith’s shop in the neighborhood, where he had been accustomed to go and play with a hammer and nails, from which he had lately been forbidden by his mother. In order to punish him for this disobedience she took him in her arms, and set him down in a chair with some violence. He was immediately seized with choking and a violent cough. As soon as he could be interrogated, he said that it was caused by a nail in his mouth, which he had procured at the blacksmith’s. The cough for a time subsided, but shortly returned with some at- tendant inflammatory symptoms of the lungs, which lasted a week. At the end of that period, as the child was lying over a chair with its head hanging downwards, a sudden clucking noise was heard, as if a sub- stance had been thrown up from the lungs into the windpipe, and was at once followed by a paroxysm of suffocation, which nearly destroyed him. He was taken up, placed in a sitting posture, and the obstruction appeared shortly to be removed.