Researches on phthisis, anatomical, pathological and therapeutical.

  • Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on phthisis, anatomical, pathological and therapeutical. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    XVU stances which accompanied the disease in its course, and more especially at the period when its suspension appeared to have taken place. And this for the simple but all-important reason that, should we succeed in ascertaining with any degree of pre- cision what these circumstances are, and should it fall within the power of the physician to produce them at will, the curative treatment of phthisis would be discovered. An investigation, similar to that of which I have now pointed out the chief particulars in regard of patients treated at their own homes, either in the country or in town, should be con- ducted also in the various public establishments, more especially the hospitals. In these establishments it would be necessary in each case, after having carefully studied the existing affec- tion, to inquire into the previous health of the patient, for the purpose of ascertaining, in cases where no actual symptoms of tuberculous disease are present, whether such symptoms might not have existed at some anterior period. In the course of time we might thus ascertain, by comparing the symptoms with the organic changes discovered, that some anatomical states, at present regarded as among the sequences of tuberculous deve- lopment, really own such origin. The medical officers of the army should in the same manner investigate the state of health of the soldiery, inasmuch as they live under different hygienic conditions from civilians, and must necessarily supply additional data for the solution of the pro- blems under consideration. Every soldier should be carefully examined, when admitted into a regiment, his chest minutely explored, and his medical history made out with the very fullest detail and accuracy, so as to enable the observer to decide with perfect confidence whether, in case of his subsequently falling ill, and presenting pectoral symptoms, these symptoms depended upon some affection of old standing, or were the effects of some perfectly new morbid state. The sea-forces should be submitted to the same kind of examination, from the sailor to the superior officer, who cannot have reached his elevated position without having passed the greater part of his life at sea, amid tempests and dangers of every description. Here, again, must arise new data for our inquiry. The seaman and the landsman do not breathe the same air,—they feed upon different kinds of diet, and arc
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