Vascular bronchocele and exophthalmos / [J. Warburton Begbie].

  • James Warburton Begbie
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vascular bronchocele and exophthalmos / [J. Warburton Begbie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Of the actual existence of such a disease as that described by Graves, Stokes, Basedow, Begbie, Trousseau, there can be no question; whoever has had the opportunity of seeing and care- fully studying a single well-marked instance of the phenomena referred to, must admit the entity of the disorder whose cha- racteristic features they are. The case brought before the Imperial Academy of Medicine at Paris in April i860, by M. Hiffelsheim, and that produced by the late M. Aran, when engaging the attention of the Academy with the same subject in the December following, are admirable illustrations of the disease, and wholly satisfactory as proofs of its separate and distinct nature. In the very important discussion in the Im- perial Academy which succeeded the reading of these cases by MM. Hiffelsheim and Aran, only one speaker attempted to throw discredit on the observations—to challenge the correct- ness of the view which assigned to the assemblage of symptoms under discussion the dignity of a specific morbid state or disease. ‘'There does not exist,” concluded M. Piorry, on 22nd July, 1862, “ a morbid unity called diathesis, cachexia, or neurosis, constituted by a triad, or a tetrad, or a pentad, or a polyad of symptoms, and which merits the name of exophthalmic goitre.” I am not aware of any other expressed opinion in accordance with that of M. Piorry, while a subsequent speaker in the same discussion, M. Bouillaud—not less than M. Piorry himself— has thrown some fresh light on the real occasion of the extra- ordinary statement just quoted. M. Bouillaud’s parole, on the 5th of August, commences as follows:—“ Gentlemen, before proceeding to the subject of discussion, I desire to pay a just tribute of praise to the two eminent colleagues (MM. Trousseau and Piorry) who, during the two former sittings of the Academy, have occupied the tribune. Happy the Academy, if, renouncing certain notorious antecedents, these two orators had in some sort extended the fraternal hand, and had afforded us the edifying and agreeable spectacle of a reconciliation which science would not have failed to applaud. The hour for the consumma- tion of so desirable an event is not yet arrived.” But, not only is there a disease mainly characterised by the features adverted to, the malady in question is very far from being uncommon in its occurrence. Prom the period when Dr. Graves wrote, there is scarcely a country in Europe in which the disease has
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