Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis.

  • Louis, P. C. A. (Pierre Charles Alexandre), 1787-1872.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    18/616
    flowing from them. My motive for not throwing the two series of cases into one is, that two groups of cases, collected at dif- ferent periods, and both of them supplying their own general inferences, appear to me to depose more strongly to the truth of these inferences than a single series, although composed of a very considerable number of facts and furnishing the same con- clusions. Those who are not so thoroughly persuaded as I am of the difficulty attending the establishment of general facts, will probably be of opinion that I might have dispensed vnth. these additions; but others will hold a different view, and the most captious and difficult to satisfy are those whom I felt it my duty to aim at convincing. The additional numerical results, corroborating the former ones, refer chiefly to the anatomy of the disease,—the most im- portant of them to the air-passages, the intestinal canal, the pleura,thelymphaticglands,andtheperitoneum. There is no organ to the description of which I have not made some useful addition. The additions of the second kind are considerable in amount. The most important among them have reference to the course of the disease, to its acute form in particular; and to the subjects of the diagnosis, etiology, and treatment of the affection. Chronic peritonitis, which I have frequently, since 1825, pointed out in my Clinical Lectures, and elsewhere, as an affection peculiar to phthisical subjects, is made the matter of an entirely new section. The same is the case with Meningitis and Prognosis; in such manner that my first Eesearches are more than doubled in extent. I have retained the remarks appended to the cases in the first edition, not omitting even those relating to the Physiological Doctrine; because that doctrine, though now, practically speak- ing, buried in oblivion, is yet sufficiently attractive, both from its simphcity and the manner in which it was taught by its illustrious author, to justify guarding against the possibility of its resuscitation. In proportion as phthisis is better understood, its ubiquity more fully estabhshed, and the alterations of structure wliicli are capable of shortening its duration, and accelerating the period of deatli, better ascertained,—in a word, in proportion as our knowledge of the affection becomes more perfect, the mind feels relieved, the horizon widens, and the attention of medical observers na- turally commences to direct itself to the investigation of the