Case of thoracic aneurism - death - autopsy : remarks on the treatment of internal aneurism / by Henry I. Bowditch, M.D.

  • Henry Ingersoll Bowditch
Date:
[1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of thoracic aneurism - death - autopsy : remarks on the treatment of internal aneurism / by Henry I. Bowditch, 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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    In Surgical Cases without Organic Disease. 11 A^6. !Er6Ct> Sitting« ■JUT 1 23 74 55° 25 78 60 27 84 71 23 90 75 24 100 88 23 84 76' 32 70 65 « 30 76 72 35 88 78 « 19 88 78 33 76 64 << 65 96 82 Female 34 96 94 28 80 76 Averages 91-42 73-85 Diseased Persons. Age. Erect. Sitting. 28 86 82 (< 50 82 70 (( . 31 88 78 (( 40 108 100 Female 13 110 88 << 40 82 76 « 25 92 82 <( 60 94 92 (( 15 100 90 (( 34 88 72 (( 32 102 88 Averages 93-81 83-45 Lying. 48 55 67 65 84 64 64 64 70 76 64 72 90 70 68-07 Lying 76 68 74 92 76 70 84 66 80 77-09 These tables seem to indicate that the average pulse is more rapid in the diseased than the healthy in all three positions. This might be anticipated. In each class, the standing position increases very much the rapidity of the pulse, but rather more in the healthy than in the unhealthy, being 23-35 more in the former to 16-72 more in the latter class. The results in health are analogous to those no- ticed by Dr. Guy, of London, many years ago.^ Thus, in one hun- dred healthy males of the mean age of 27, Dr. Guy found the mean numbers of the pulse were, while standing, 79 j sitting, 70 j and ly- ing, 67. He found, also, that by raising a person without allowing him to make any muscular effort the pulse was but very little altered, thus proving that it is the muscular effort made in standing erect, rather than the position itself, which is the cause of a quickened pulse. Comparing this powerful influence on the rapid flow of the blood with the little real influence that we can have on the composition of the blood by any diet, and the doubt one has as to whether the in- crease of the fibrine is really a desirable object to be obtained, and that it forms but a very small constituent part of the circulating fluid, I think we are led to suspect that, after all, this element of quiet in a horizontal position is the most important agent of all the three originally proposed even in Hippocratic days, hinted at and * Guy's Hospital Reports, Nos. vi. and vii.
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