A treatise on the diseases of the chest : in which they are described according to their anatomical characters, and their diagnosis established on a new principle by means of acoustick instruments / R.T.H. Laennec ; translated ... with a preface and notes by John Forbes.

  • Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases of the chest : in which they are described according to their anatomical characters, and their diagnosis established on a new principle by means of acoustick instruments / R.T.H. Laennec ; translated ... with a preface and notes by John Forbes. 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.

    64/498 (page 24)
    These depressions are found most frequently on the posterior or exterior side of the up])cr lobes. Wien they are very deep, it sometimes happens that the anterior part of tlie lobe, drawn upwards and backwards by the apparent loss of substance and con- sequent falling in of the part, overlaps the depressed portion like the crest of a helmet. The posterior portion of the lung has sometimes the same appear- ance, but in a manner much less strongly marked. (See fig. 1 and 2, plate III.) Whatever resemblance these depressions may have to cicatrices, I do not consider them as really such, but rather as analogous to those depressions met with in schirrous mammae, which are, in like manner, oc- casioned by the diseased action going on in the sub- stance within. In the one case the surface of the lungs, in the other the skin is retracted by the shrink- ing of the subjacent parts. In carefully examining such lungs as showed simi- lar depressions 6n their surface, I have invariably found, at the depth of half a line, a line, or two lines at farthest, a cellular, fibrous or fibro-cartilaginous mass similar to those described above. The pulmo- nary tissue comprehended within this (depressed) space is almost always flabby, and not crepitous, even in cases where there is no sign of conjestion nor of impregnation with the black pulmonary matter. Every where else, however, in the vicinity of these I productions, the lung is generally quite sound. In tracing the bronchial tubes near these masses I have observed that such as held a direction towards th^m were commonly dilated. In some cases I hare