Clinical lectures on pulmonary tuberculosis.

  • Thompson, Theophilus, 1807-1860.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on pulmonary tuberculosis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    symptom depend on mere functional disturbance, and disappear, leaving the subject of it in apparent health? Having devoted some attention to this inquiry, I must acknowledge that although wavy inspiration, when dependent on pleurisy, bronchial affection, or rheuma- tism, may disappear, I have not satisfied myself of its removal (unless superseded by more serious symptoms) in any instance unconnected with the conditions which I have specified. To what cause then can the produc- tion of so persistent a phenomena be attributed ? The sensation conveyed to the ear suggests the idea of some obstruction in the pulmonary tissue, yielding at gradual intervals to the admission of air. The persist- ency of the sign points to some organic change, whilst its frequently stationary character encourages the belief that such change is not necessarily tubercular. Sufficient opportunities have not occurred for con- clusively testing any hypothesis, but the explanation which would appear best calculated to meet the con- ditions wrould assume the existence of an exudation, less albuminous than tubercle, less fibrinous than the usual product of common inflammation, about the walls of the small bronchial tubes, and the interstices of the pulmonary substance, calculated to impair the elasticity of the surrounding structure. The frequent existence of such an exudation is not a matter of speculation; it is, indeed, described by Eokitansky as not unfrequent. We may suppose that such morbid product of low inflammation may some- times be sufficiently plastic to become organized, and to constitute hypertrophy of the cells and lobules, without involving any serious pulmonary disorganize