Hints on the pathology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of thoracic consumption / by J.C. Hall.

  • John Charles Hall
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints on the pathology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of thoracic consumption / by J.C. Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    verted into one tuberculous mass, “ tbe tuberculous infiltra- tion” of some authors. Dr. Handfield Jones bas expressed the belief that “ in a person whose blood is affected in a high degree by the tuberculous dyscrasia, infiammatory hyperoemia may result in the exudation of a material which corresponds closely with the tuberculous, but is less inclined to soften and break down.” In some of the most rapidly fatal cases of thoracic consumption I have seen, this has taken place ; many of the ordinary signs of phthisis have been absent; the patient dying without either cough or expectoration. Of this variety of thoracic consumption, the following case affords an instruc- tive example:—Miss H , fair and delicate in appearance, with light hair and blue eyes, whose mother had died of phthisis soon after giving birth to this her third child, com- plained about three months before my seeing her of being tired after the slightest exertion. She had rapidly lost flesh, although the appetite was still good, and she could take exer- cise in a carriage. She had not had any cough^ expectoration^ or hcBMoptysis. There was an increase of the expiratory mur- mur at each apex, and the respiration was dry and tubular— voice bronchial. There was a falling in of the chest beneath each clavicle, and great want of mobility, particularly on the left side. The shortness of breath on the slightest exertion was painful to witness, and throughout there was hardly any cough, expectoration, night sweats, or diarrhoea. An examination of the body after death, I was informed, showed both lungs to be filled with a tuberculous deposit. Here we have an example of a case of tuberculosis in which the very foundation of organic life may be said to have been rapidly destroyed—the greatest emaciation possible being present, without the usual attendants of thoracic consumption, night sweats, cough, ex- pectoration, and diarrhoea.
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