Lectures on the heart : delivered at the Melbourne University, Victoria, during the session of 1864 / by George B. Halford.

  • Halford, George Britton, 1824-1910.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the heart : delivered at the Melbourne University, Victoria, during the session of 1864 / by George B. Halford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    truly gifted and excellent man, can pardon if not enjoy the hard blows° he deals about him in his little work on “ Diseases of the Chest.” Thus he tells us that at least twenty-nine theories have been proposed in explanation of the heart s sound from the time of Laennec to 1852, but adds, “ what a libel on the brains of the profession !” It was in 1852 that I became a member of ^the pro- fession, since which time I have been “terris jactatus et alto, a little rest here, a good deal of unquiet there, still I have never ceased to reach if possible the one cause of the heart’s sounds. Had my opportunities been greater, 1 verily believe these lectures would have been worthier of your audience ] as it is, with all their imperfections, this I can confidently assert, that every observation and experiment has been repeated not once, but probably fifty, certainly twenty, times. The second sound of the heart is generally, but not universally, attributed to tension of the semilunar valves. Of the cause of the first sound there is less unanimity of opinion. I will only mention four as being worthy of consideration. 1. Impulse of heart’s apex against ribs. 2. Bruit musculaire. 3. Rush of blood. 4. Valvular tension. 1st. The impulse of the heart against the ribs.—Many prominent men, as Magendie, Carpenter, Skoda, Williams, Walshe, Kirkes, have assigned this as a cause for the heart’s sounds, and we cannot wonder when, in this completed edition of “ Arnott’s Elements of Physic,” the eminent author thus writes: “ The heart alone is the rugged anomaly which, from before birth unto the dying moment, throbs unceasingly, and sends the bounding pulse of life to every part ; and which, moreover, instead of being secured and tied down to its place is attached to the extremity of the aorta, like a weight at the end of an elastic branch of a tree, and every time that it fills the aorta, is thrown with violence, by the consequent sudden tendency of that vessel to become straightened, against the ribs, in the place where the hand applied, feels it so distinctly beating.” But are they right 1 I think not, for the heart never swings about as this description by Dr. Arnott would lead the reader to suppose. How can the heart leave the chest-walls unless something take its place 1 and what is to take its place except the lungs 1 Now, as the heart moves four times while the lung is moving once, it cannot be they—ergo, it can be nothing. But, say these authorities, and perhaps you yourselves, the heart is felt beating. It docs give a blow. Gentlemen, let me use another of Billing’s simple explanations of this apparent blow. Place the fingers on the masseter muscle and retain them there, then put the muscle forcibly in action, and although the fingers never leave the muscle nor the muscle the fingers, still the sensation of a blow will be perceived ; but, as you
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