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.

    54/160 page 46
    CHEONIC THOEACIC CONSDMPTION. there is no tendency to thoracic consumption the microscope will often exhibit in the expectoration of those suffering from pulmonary congestion corpuscles of one uniform kind, having a reaction similar to pus globules; hut when the pulmonary con- gestion arises from tubercle, even at a very early stage, according to my own observation, the corpuscles vary in form, and have jagged margins^ only seen, as far as I know, in the sputa of those who are labouring under thoracic consumption.] He said he had once coughed up something that was hard and white, at which time there was also a little blood. He has always from a child suffered from dyspepsia. There was no- thing peculiar in the gums—the pulse was 84; the bowels were regular and the urine deposited lithates. He complained of pain over the clavicular regions on both sides, where some little dullness on percussion could be detected. A wavy inspi- ration, extending over the whole of the front of the left apex, could be heard, and in one or two places a slight friction sound was apparent. A small blister was applied on the left side, under the clavicle, and he was ordered a few grains of rhubarb at night, and an ounce of the infusion of roses with two drops of hydrocyanic acid (Scheele’s) three times a day. In a week or two he was much improved, and I directed him to take cod- liver oil (a teaspoonful three times a day), and to go to the sea- side. He gained weight, his cough nearly left him, his general health was better, and I did not see him again until the end of September. He then told me he had taken cold, that he had constant pain under the left collar bone, and had again noticed that his expectoration was streaked with blood; he complained of shortness of breath and said “ it killed him to go up hill.’’ A humid click was now very distinct over a small por- tion of the apex of the left lung. His cough was troublesome and the expectoration consisted of free fat and other granules;
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