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.
93/616 page 53
![Sometimes it extended into the large trunks arising from the aorta, more especially the carotids. With a single exception, this condition was only noticed in individuals aged from twenty to thirty-two years. (Cases i, xxx, liv, &c.) Organic lesions of the aorta, namely, the soft yellow patch, and the white cartilaginous patch, with the ulcerations they so frequently entail, and lastly, the osseous patch, were noticed with somewhat less frequency than red discoloration,—namely, in the sixth part only of my cases, either simple or complicated, in subjects varying in age from thirty-five to seventy-five years. Generally speaking, these lesions were in a more advanced state, and more frequently met with near the bifurcation of the aorta than elsewhere. Reflecting upon the diminution in the mass of the circulating fluids in phthisis, we are naturally led to expect that the arte- ries, and more especially the aorta, must he of smaller caliber in persons dying of that affection than in the victims of acute diseases. A difference of this kind does actually exist, but it is perhaps less in amount than would, on first consideration, have been supposed. Thus, in twelve subjects, aged from twenty to thirty years, cut off by typhoid fever, the mean width of the aorta, on the level of the free borders of the sygmoid valves,— about one inch and two lines below the origin of the left subclavian artery,—about one inch and two lines above the celiac axis,—and the same distance above the bifurcation of the vessel, was respect- ively about two inches five lines, one inch nine lines and a half, one inch and a half, and ten lines [about 60, 43, 38, and 20 milli- meters]. Now in an equal number of phthisical subjects of the same age, the artery measured at the same points, about two inches four hues and a half, one inch eight lines and a quarter, one inch five lines and a half, and ten lines [57, 40^, 31 j, and 20 millimeters]. The difference here exhibited is inconsiderable, but real nevertheless, and proportional in all parts of the vessel to its caliber; in such manner, that where its dimensions are smallest, the difference was about one line [2 millimeters] less than anywhere else.1 1 The inequality of width of the aorta in the space comprised between the left sub- clavian and the caliac axis, shows that that vessel is not formed of a succession of cylindersi but that it is actually conoid. I have satisfied myself that the case is the same with the femoral artery, the primitive carotid, and other vessels of less size.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21015235_0093.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
