Throat ailments : more especially the enlarged tonsil and elongated uvula in connexion with defects of voice, speech, hearing, deglutition, respiration, cough, nasal obstruction, and the imperfect development of health, strength, and growth, in young persons / by James Yearsley.

  • Yearsley, James, 1805-1869.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Throat ailments : more especially the enlarged tonsil and elongated uvula in connexion with defects of voice, speech, hearing, deglutition, respiration, cough, nasal obstruction, and the imperfect development of health, strength, and growth, in young persons / by James Yearsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    upper lip tumid, and the whole external surface of the body more fragile than is compatible with health, have unfortunately within their constitutions the germs of numerous and distressing ailments, ready to start into activity upon exposure to exciting causes even of a slight or transitory nature. I have elsewhere remarked that when the skin is of very delicate organization, the mucous membranes throughout the whole body partake of the sensibility possessed by the external cutaneous surface. This is shown by the tendency to ophthalmia and soreness of the eyelids, soreness of the lips and nose, ear-ache, and other ear disorders, all of which proceed from morbid susceptibility of the mucous membranes. With such a predisposition, we can readily understand how likely a cold or sore throat is to excite hypertrophy of the tonsils. Lastly, debility in children must be considered as pre- disposing to these morbid growths of the tonsils. From whatever cause it arises, whether congenital or produced by other diseases, it renders them, of course, more open to the impressions of the existing causes of disorders than can occur during the continuance of sound health. Exciting Causes of the Disease. — The tonsillary glands, from their situation and exposure to various hurtful agencies, are of all the glands the most liable to become diseased. Bearing an intimate connexion with the organs of deglutition, respiration, hearing, and the voice, they are necessarily exposed to all the influences which act preju- dicially on these functions. Cold, in its various forms, is the most frequent of all exciting causes • of tonsillary disease. It may act in a gradual manner, by producing chronic enlargement, with- out any very striking symptom to mark its progress, or it