Researches on phthisis, anatomical, pathological and therapeutical.
- Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
- Date:
- 1844
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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![as well as of myself, upon the matter. I have in two instances found false membrane of moderate consistence, and covering the costal and pulmonary pleura?, converted into tuberculous matter. (Case xxiv.) In a third instance I discovered tuber- culous transformation of a very limited portion of a semi- cartilaginous false membrane, investing the apex of one of the lungs. Pleurisy, as well as pneumonia, occurred in a considerable number of subjects at the close of life, when weakness and emaciation had reached their maximum. I observed it in one tenth of my cases. The lung or costal pleura, generally both of them, were covered, to a variable extent, by a false membrane of yellowish colour, soft consistence, and varying thickness; with this coexisted effusion of a certain quantity of reddish serosity, either transparent or turbid;—in some cases the fluid was actually purulent. The characters of the lesion showed its recent origin; and the symptoms fixed its invasion to nineteen, twelve, eight, and three days before death. I have also observed pleuritic effusion, consisting of trans- parent serosity, to the amount of about a pint and three quarters [1 litre] and upwards. This effusion, noticed in one tenth part of my cases, occurred in some of them with great rapidity. Thus in two patients, whose chests emitted a per- fectly clear sound on percussion from the base to the summit a day and a half before death, there were about three pints and a half [2 litres] of limpid serosity discovered in one pleural cavity. With two very remarkable exceptions the various lesions just passed in review occur, though in different proportions, in subjects carried off by other chronic diseases as well as by phthisis. Thus in thirty-five out of one hundred and ten cases in which I looked for them, adhesions were discovered ; and in twelve of these the adhesions were general, either on both sides or on one only. Although this proportion is high, still it falls much below that ascertained in the instance of phthisical patients ■ a circumstance furnishing new evidence of the influence of tubercles on the development of adhesions. Pleurisy frequently occurs at the close of non-tuberculous chronic diseases, in the same manner as in phthisis. Sometimes](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21015235_0077.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
