A dissertation on the importance of physical signs in the various diseases of the abdomen and thorax / by Robert W. Haxall.

  • Haxall, Robert W. (Robert William), 1802-1872.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on the importance of physical signs in the various diseases of the abdomen and thorax / by Robert W. Haxall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    diameters, but without permitting their indefinite and diver- sified ramifications ; the other substance is a red and highly- vascular parenchyma, situated within the interstices of the first, and eminently capable of undergoing a change either in the diminution or augmentation of its volume. When we make a section of the organ in a state of health, the peculiar structure we have indicated may be recognized, but much more clearly however in a diseased condition. Either one of these formations may be separately affected ; in the one we may discover hypertrophy of its tissue, while that of the other remains undisturbed, and vice versa ; or the one may be subjected to an increase in its nutrition, while the other suffers a diminution, or both may be simultaneously diseased in whole or in part. We have recurred to this feature in the structure of this viscus, for the purpose of explaining more satisfactorily, the peculiarity which its hypertrophy gives to palpation, when carried to an extent sufficient to produce a tumor. The touch then recognizes a tumor of greater cr less size, pre- senting manifest inequalities, in consequence of every portion of the organ not being similarly hypertrophied ; the white or red substance being alone altered, or both in unequal de- grees. Hypertrophy is rarely or never met with as an idiopathic affection, but may be considered the result of an inflammation primitively chronic. From this circumstance we can scarcely confound it with active engorgement, leaving out of the question the assistance we are enabled to derive from local signs ; for there is an absence of those sympa- thetic disturbances which almost invariably characterize that affection. The morbid increase of the nutritive function expressed by the term hypertrophy, being the result of primitive chronic engorgements, may exist as such for a longer or shorter period ; but it is frequently noticed as the second link in that chain which ultimately terminates in disorgani- zation, and autopsy reveals the existence of fatty substances,