Traumatic tuberculosis, pneumonia, and pleurisy / by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Frederick Parkes Weber
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Traumatic tuberculosis, pneumonia, and pleurisy / by F. Parkes Weber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ago in England was that of a man who was violently thrown when hunting and fell heavily on his left shoulder and side. He then rode home Avet through. Signs of pneumonia developed very soon afterwards, and he died seven days after the injury. Many other cases, resembling some of the preceding ones, have been recorded, and a good many papers on the whole subject of traumatic pneumonia have appeared from time to time.* In regard to the symptoms of traumatic pneumonia it is probable that in the more favourable cases there is less expectora- tion than in ordinary non-traumatic pneumonia. Early hfemop- tysis, due to the mechanical injury of the lung, seems to be a characteristic of some, but by no means of all, cases. External bruising is of course often present, but is by no means necessarily a marked feature, and may be absent altogether. A crisis may occur, as in typical examples of ordinary pneumonia. Eecovery is the rule, but the proportion of fatal cases, according to Litten, is considerable. Chronic bronchitis, alcoholism and degenerative conditions of the blood-vessels doubtless act as predisposing causes | of contusional pneumonia, and favour the severity of the attack. The presence of latent pulmonary tuberculosis perhaps also favours the occurrence of contusional pneumonia. M. Wassermann]; records the case of a tailor, aged 24 years, with quiescent pulmonary tuberculosis. He received a fracture of the sternum, and this was apparently folloAved both by lobar pneumonia and by miliary tuberculosis. With reference to the diagnosis of contusional pneumonia, Litten claims that a traumatism of suitable kind should be ascertained to have preceded the lung symptoms, that there should naturally be no evidence that the patient had pneumonia before the traumatism, and that the time intervening between the injury and the onset of • Souques (“ Pneumonie contuaive,” Presse Medicate, Paris, March 3rd, 1900, p. 109), refers to much of the older literature on the subject. For numerous references to the literature see especially R. Stern, Ueber traumatische EnMehuny innerer Kran kheiten, Jena, 1896; and the recent epitome of the subject by L. Mueller in Centralblatt f. d. Gt enzgebiete d. Med, u. chir. Jena, 1910, Vol. 13, Nos. 1-5. t Cf. F. Pancrazio, Acad. Med. di Padova, March 31st, 1907, PolicUnico, Rome, 1907, Vol. 14 (Sezione pratica), p. 781. 1 Wassermann, Chnrite-Annalen, Berlin, 1899, Vol. 24, p. 184.