Observations with Hutchison's spirometer / by C. Radclyffe Hall, M.D.
- Hall, Charles Radclyffe.
- Date:
- 1851
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations with Hutchison's spirometer / by C. Radclyffe Hall, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![But although there be no physiological ground for denying to a man with spacious healthy lungs the perfect and energetic perform- ance of the function of respiration, merely on the score of his possessing a small vital capacity, yet such a man does lose certain advantages which a large vital capacity always confers. He is, of course, less fitted for those emergencies which demand unusual extent of respiratory movement, less capable of temporarily enlarg- ing the superficies of his chest for the more advantageous action of his muscles during extraordinary muscular exertion, and has less available space to compensate for any encroachment on his chest by disease. Clearly, to possess a large vital capacity is a great advan- tage. The question is, however, how great is the disadvantage entailed by a small vital capacity ? To ascertain this, we must review the conditions on which smallness of vital capacity depends, and some one or more of which its presence indicates. Laying stature aside, these conditions in the adult of both sexes appear to be the following :— 1. Large healthy lungs with small mobility. 2. Small healthy lungs with average mobility. 3. Small healthy lungs with small mobility. 4. Lungs whose expansion is obstructed by disease either of their own tissues or of other parts, without any necessary diminu- tion of thoracic mobility, as usually measured with the tape. 5. Disease which occasions obvious lessened mobility of the walls of the chest. 6. Morbid impatience of holding the breath sufficiently to do justice to the actual capacity of the chest. 1. The greatest bulk of lung lies behind the front part of the fourth intercostal space during expiration. A tape drawn around the chest, just below the nipples, covers this space in front. The circumference of the chest so obtained, regard being had to the fatness or spareness of the individual, indicates the size of the lungs; not accurately, for the perpendicular bulk of the lungs may difi'er, but with sufficient correctness. The degree in which the person can extend this tape from the completest expiration to the fullest inspiration, is the measure of the thoracic mobility. A source of fallacy to be avoided in making the observation consists in the ])aticnt separating and approximating the inferior angles of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21475489_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
