A new inquiry into the suspension of vital action, in cases of drowning and suffocation. Being an attempt to concentrate into a more luminous point of view, the scattered rays of science, respecting that interesting though mysterious subject to elucidate the approximate cause and to appretiate [sic] the present remedies, and to point out the best method of restoring animation / By A. Fothergill.

  • Anthony Fothergill
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new inquiry into the suspension of vital action, in cases of drowning and suffocation. Being an attempt to concentrate into a more luminous point of view, the scattered rays of science, respecting that interesting though mysterious subject to elucidate the approximate cause and to appretiate [sic] the present remedies, and to point out the best method of restoring animation / By A. Fothergill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    76/238 (page 42)
    / [ 42 ] . f of water—a quantity, perhaps, greater than is commonly found in the lungs of drowned animals, may be injefted into the wind-pipe without prov¬ ing fatal. In the Hydro-thorax, an incredible quantity of water is fometimes colle&ed in the cavity of the cheft, without fuddenly deftroying life. A re¬ markable inftance of this is related in the Me¬ moirs of the Parifian Academy of Chirurgery, where upwards of 5 pints were repeatedly drawn off by a perforation made between the ribs. As the inftrument could be paffed to the depth of 5 inches into the cavity, without touching the lungs, that organ mull have been almoit deluged with water previous to each operation, and yet the fluid, notwithftanding its preffure, did not produce a fudden fufpenflon of the vital funQions.* If an artificial dropfy of the cheft be produced by injecting, a confiderable quantity of water into the thorax of a healthy animal, it immediately cau- fes oppreflion, and difficulty of breathing but no fatal fyncope enfues. For the water is gradually abforbed, and the fymptoms foon difappear. In drowning, the cafe is very different, fince a few minutes fubmerfion is fufficient to deftroy the life of the animal, even whether water enters the wind-pipe, or not, for in many cafes none is to be * Memoirs de r Acad, de Chirurg. Tom. 2, p, 546. found