Cardiac hypertrophy with constriction and incompetency of the mitral valve following rheumatic fever; sudden apoplectic seizure; paralysis of whole of left side; death in eight days : obstruction of right middle cerebral artery by a firm mass of fibrin and softening of brain.

Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cardiac hypertrophy with constriction and incompetency of the mitral valve following rheumatic fever; sudden apoplectic seizure; paralysis of whole of left side; death in eight days : obstruction of right middle cerebral artery by a firm mass of fibrin and softening of brain. 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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    hage into the pulmonary tissue, has not as yet been fully elucidated, but Professor Virchow gives as a very probable explanation, that it is due to undue pressure on the arterial circulation, giving rise to rupture of the smaller vessels. The source must be sought for in the right side of the heart or in the veins. The veins were free, but -we had in the right auricular 'appendix, a condition precisely similar to that found in the left, viz;—a mass of old fibrinous coagulum, and it was probably to portions of these becoming loosened, and entering the circulation, that the whole of the pathological phenomena which we have here passed under review, are to be ascribed. Dr. Kirkes has noticed in some of these cases, spots of hBemorrhage in the mucous membrane of the stomach, he attributes this to the same cause as the haemorr- hages observed in the lungs, and supposes it to be due to occlusion of the small arteries of the mucous membrane. These hsemorrhagic erosions of the stomach are very common in cases of cardiac disease. I have examined them very carefully in numerous instances, but have never found an indication of the existence of the cause to which Dr. Kirkes ascribes them, They are most frequent in cases where the tripuspid valve is deficient in its action,—as was the case heie,—but are also very common in cases of cirrhosis of the liver, and are I am inclined to believe simply the result of obstructions to the return of blood from the organ, which cause rupture of the smaller vessels. In illustration of the case, a preparation of the diseased brain of the patient was exhibited. I). Dilworth, Printer, Newcastle,
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