Outline of an inquiry on the pathology of consumptive diseases. Part 2 / by John Abercrombie.

Date:
[1822?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outline of an inquiry on the pathology of consumptive diseases. Part 2 / by John Abercrombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    A person in whom such a mass of disease exists is in a pre- carious state, as there is both a great disposition to an exten- sion of the disease, and a tendency to pass into ulceration of an unhealthy character. The latter seems to be the result of inflammatory action of a low insidious kind; and to this the diseased mass, or the parts surrounding it, appear to be ex- tremely liable, from slight causes. It is probable that it may commence either in the substance of the mass—in the pulmon- ary substance near it—in the pleura covering it—or in the bron- chial membrane most nearly connected with it. Hence the first symptoms may assume the characters of slight peripneumo- nia, pleuritis, or catarrh; but in either case terminate by bring- ing the mass into a state of activity. The patient is extremely liable to be affected by cold; and upon every attack from such exposure, there is usually a fixed point to which he refers his uneasiness, or, according to a mode of expression frequently employed, “ the slightest cold always seizes him in that spot. ” The symptoms usually arc, pain in the part, more or less acute, and more or less affected by inspiration, cough, and frequently slight haemoptysis; such attacks frequently subsiding under the appropriate treatment, and as often recurring upon the next exposure, until at length one of them terminates in that un- healthy ulceration which constitutes consumption. Much is to be done here by active, judicious treatment, and much by avoid- ing the exciting causes of these attacks; and it is in this state of the disease that removal to an equable climate, if adopted at the proper period, may be recommended as a remedy of real efficacy. In the cases now referred to, a part only of the mor- bid mass is the true tubercle, and it seems doubtful whether this be susceptible of active inflammation; but its peculiar change to a softened state of unhealthy suppuration appears to be accelerated by inflammatory action affecting the parts sur- rounding it. It may, however, undergo this change gradually and insidiously, without any inflammatory symptoms, giving rise to a form of the disease the most untractable, the least un- der the influence of any remedy, and generally hopeless. Sect. II.—On the other hand, the Induration may he so exten- sive as to prove fatal, without advancing to Ulceration. The symptoms in these cases usually are, frequent harassing cough, without expectoration, or with scanty mucous expectora- tion from the bronchial membrane, short uneasy breathing, fre- quent pulse, in some cases distinct hectic paroxysms, diarrhoea, and death by gradual wasting. The bowels frequently become