On the influence of the Alpine climates on pulmonary consumption / by Hermann Weber.

  • Weber, Hermann, 1823-1918.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the influence of the Alpine climates on pulmonary consumption / by Hermann Weber. 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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    spaces; and an analogous condition on the back of the same side, Notiiing abnormal was discovered on the right side. He had short- ness of breath. Pulse 85; thoracic expansion, 35 to 36^ inches. He went to Valparaiso, and had there again htemoptysis. He spent then eight months on the Peruvian Andes (at an elevation of between 9,000 and 10,000 feet), and gained flesh and lost cough. He went afterwards to New Orleans, where he again began to cough and lose flesh. He was sent thence to the table-land of Mexico, where, to his own feeling, he entirely recovered his health. When seen by me in the autumn of i860, the dulness on the left side reached only from the apex to the third rib. This portion was much flattened; and there was absence of vesicular breathing, but no bronchophony, and no rhonchus. He had gained 241b. in twenty-seven months. Pulse 66; expansion of chest, 36 to 38 inches. He remained well until the spring of 1866, when he again began to cough, was often feverish, lost much flesh, and had some hjemoptysis. When seen in the beginning of October 1866, the old affection of the left side had remained almost unchanged ; but on the right there was dulness from the apex to the fourth rib, with broncho- phony and occasional crackling rhonchus in the subclavicular space. He had lost 20 lb. in twelve months. Pulse 95 ; chest-expansion, 35^ to 37 inches. He went to the Valley of Jauja, in the Peravian Andes, and lost his cough almost entirely; and, when seen in June 1867, he had gained 15 lb. The dulness descended on the right side only to the second rib. There was no rhonchus, but scarcely any respiratory murmur over the dull space. Pulse 74; expansion of chest, 36 to 38 inches. The rapid improvement repeatedly obtained in this case by the re- moval to elevated regions is very striking; and it is also important to remark, that the improvement effected by the stay at Cairo and in the South of France was neither so great nor so lasting as that from the mountain sojourn. Case iv. B. D., from the lower parts of Switzerland, came to London in 1864, aged 22. He was much depressed by the fogs and dulness of the atmosphere. He had repeated attacks of bronchitis during the winter; and in the spring of 1865 he coughed, and became emaciated during the summer. There was slight dulness in the left cla- vicular and infraclavicular region, with diminished respiratory sounds. He spent the winter at Bordeaux and at Cannes; he never lost his cough entirely, and continued to lose weight. He returned to London in May 1866. Dulness extended on the left side from the apex to the third rib. He had, early in June, an attack of sore-throat, which was with him the usual forerunner of bronchitis; he became feverish, and by the end of the month a pleuropneumonic affection was ascertained in the lower part of the right side, which gradually crept upwards to the upper third of the scapula. By the end of July, the pyrexia had almost ceased, under a treatment of milk, quinine, and cod-liver oil; but the dulness over the back of the right side had not yielded. There was crepi- tant rhonchus over the upper part of the dull space, and absence of re- spiratory inurmur over the lower; pulse 92 to 100; expansion of chest, 31I to 33 inches. The dyspnoea was great at every exertion ; frequent cough, with about two and a half ounces of mucopurulent expectora- tion. He had lost 27 lbs. in as many months' stay in London. In this state he went, towards the end of July, to the Righi (Kaltbad and Scheideck), lived there almost entirely in the open air, and drank about two quarts of milk every day. In less than six weeks, he was able to take considerable walks; and in October he had lost his cough almost entirely. He spent the winter in different parts of Switzedand, usually above 2,500 feet above the sea-level. He had not a single