Practical observations on diseases of the lungs and heart / By Archibald Billing.

  • Billing, Archibald, 1791-1881.
Date:
MDCCCLII. [1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on diseases of the lungs and heart / By Archibald Billing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    46/150 (page 38)
    The expectoration in catarrh is mucous—that is, an increase of the natural secretion of the parts, which is gelatinous but not tough, without much taste, and inclined to become opaque; in bronchitis it ispituitous, an exudation of sero-albnminous tough glairy slime, transparent and saline; but inasmuch as catarrh and bronchitis run into each other, the expectoration is frequently a mixture of mucus and pituita ;* in peripneumonia notha, too, it is a mix- ture of both, whereas in true pneumonia it is a very scanty and tough pituita, which, besides being saline, from the salts of the serum of the blood, partially loses its transparency, and has a rusty colour imparted to it by the red particles of blood which are extravasated by the inflammation. When febrile symptoms are present, the disease assumes the state of bronchitis, or influenza, or fe- verish cold : there is chilliness, loss of appetite, pains in the back and limbs, and other feverish symptoms; a dry swollen state of the bronchial membrane,exactly like what occurs in measles; which must be treated by bleeding, or leeches, and blisters to the chest, * I speak the language of the obvious properties of the ex- pectorated matters, discoverable by the unaided senses of sight and smell. Microscopic observation of the existence of mucous- corpuscles, epithelial matters, &c., most important for the minute pathology of the subject, at present lend no aid in clinical ob- servation. The increased alkalinity of morbid secretion from mucous membranes now proved by chemical analysis explains the well-known irritating quality of these secretions. The glottis in acute stages of bronchitis, like the upper lip in schneideritis, or common cold in the head, is irritated by the acridity of the secretion due to the presence of an increased quantity of alkali and salts.