Lectures on the physical diagnosis of the diseases of the lungs and heart / by Herbert Davies.

  • Davies, Herbert.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the physical diagnosis of the diseases of the lungs and heart / by Herbert Davies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    time of Laennec's great discovery, was involved in ab- solute gloom and uncertainty. With these preliminary remarks, I shall at once proceed to the proper object of the course, and occupy the remainder of this Lecture with a brief sketch of the anatomy and physiology of the contents of the thoracic cavity. The chest is a large conoid cavity, the parietes of which are composed of bone, cartilage, ligament, and muscle, so admirably adjusted to each other, that strength and lightness of structure, wonderful facility of motion, and security to the important organs con- tained in it, result from the union of these parts. Its boundaries are the sternum and costal cartilages in front, the seven true and five false ribs on each side, and the dorsal vertebrae behind. Its floor, formed by the irre- gularly convex surface of the diaphragm, presents three important openings,—one between the crura of the lesser diaphragm, for the passage of the aorta, thoracic duct, and vena azygos; a second formed by the decus- sation of the crura for the oesophagus and par vagum ; and the third in the tendinous centre of the muscle, for the transmission of the inferior vena cava. The upper orifice of the cavity is a plane, which represents the section of an obliquely truncated cone; so that, in consequence of the position of the clavicales, the apparent differs very considerably from the real form of the upper outlet of the thorax. The diameters are,—the perpendicular, the antero-posterior, and the transverse. The first, by reason of the obliquity of the upper and lower orifices of the chest, has its maximum length along the vertebral column, and its minimum represented by a line drawn from the centre of the
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