Clinical lectures on pulmonary tuberculosis.

  • Thompson, Theophilus, 1807-1860.
Date:
1854
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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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    tended to ascertain the capacity of the lungs for air. The person using it should have his garments loosened, and should stand erect, with his head thrown back, and immediately after taking a full, slow inspiration, ad- just the mouth-piece closely to his lips, and empty the lungs as far as possible by a slow, complete expiration. Dr. Hutchinson* has deduced from an extensive series of observations the remarkable law, that in a state of health the vital capacity has a relation to the height of the individual, and that it increases in the propor- tion of eight cubic inches of air for every inch of stature from five to six feet. In several hundred cases ex- amined at this hospital, we have found the average reduction of vital capacity after the second stage, that softening has commenced, to be more than fifty per cent.; whilst in the first stage,—that, namely, before softening,—the average reduction has been about thirty per cent. It is desirable to mention by way of caution, that in their early trials with the instrument, some patients, in consequence of nervousness or inexperi- ence, do not expire an amount of air equal to their vital capacity; unfavourable conclusions, therefore, should not be hastily drawn; but when an individual expires his average quantity, it is fair to assume that he is free from tubercular disease; f and when the quantity nearly approaches the average, we may also reasonably conclude that tubercular disease, if exist- ing, has made little progress. You perceive that in the table before you, the weight of the patient is also recorded. Change of weight is * See '-'Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xxix. t First Medical Report of the Hospital, p. 26.