An inaugural dissertation on pulmonary consumption.

  • Edward Delafield
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural dissertation on pulmonary consumption. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    By the same author, contagion is supposed to commu- nicate this disease. Morgagni, Van Swieten, Home and Heberden all hold this opinion. And Morgagni relates that Valsalva, who was predisposed to Consumption, was so satisfied of its contagious nature, that he constantly avoided being present at the dissection of the lungs of persons who had died of that disorder. Dr. Rush maintains the same doctrine, and relates that the late Dr. Beardsley of Connecticut, informed him that he had known several black slaves affected by a Consump- tion, which had previously swept away several of the white members of the family to which they belonged. In these slaves no suspicion was entertained of the most dis- tant relationship to the persons from whom they had con- tracted the disease: nor had grief nor fatigue, been sup- posed to have had the least share in debilitating their bo- dies. The force of so much authority with the evidence adduced, constrains us to admit the communicability of Consumption by contagion. But if this agent has any ef- fect, its action must be extremely limited, and extend no farther than to those previously predisposed to the disease. For daily examples without number occur of the constant attendants upon those labouring under Phthisis remaining perfectly free from that malady. Violence done to the lungs by blows or other injuries of the chest, has in some instances, excited Consump- tion/ f Dr. Lind states, that out of 360 patients whom he attended between July 1, 1758, and July], 1760, in consumption, the disease was brought on one fourth ef