On anthracosis or coal-miner's phthisis : the spurious melanosis of Carswell / [J. Warburton Begbie].

  • James Warburton Begbie
Date:
1882
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On anthracosis or coal-miner's phthisis : the spurious melanosis of Carswell / [J. Warburton Begbie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    recognised. Laennec, in writing of “Melanoses ” of tlie lungs,1 alludes to the discovery of such pigment, more or less abun- dantly in the lungs of almost all adults, it being found chiefly in persons advanced in life. In the lungs of young persons, on the contrary, he remarks, rarely are any traces to be noticed. The appearance, as regards colour, presented by the lungs of young persons, Laennec likens to that seen in the same organs in oxen and many other animals ; and he hazards the conjecture that possibly the pigment, “ matiere noire,” exists only in the lungs of man and of carnivorous animals; adding, however, with characteristitic modesty, that his own attention to compa- rative anatomy had been too limited to admit of his expressing a confident opinion on that head. What is of greater interest, however, and more immediately connected with the subject of' this paper, is the further statement by Laennec, at the same place, that he has sometimes surmised that the black matter in question may in part at least proceed from the smoke of lamps and combustible bodies used for the purposes of warming and of lighting; and again, that in the lungs, as well as in the bronchial glands, of cottagers unaccustomed to watching or sitting up late at night, the pigmentary matter is either absent or present in very small amount. This experience, Laennec is careful to say, is not universal; for the discovery of pigment in considerable amount has on the other hand been occasionally made in the lungs of persons in no peculiar manner exposed to the causes just alluded to. The reader familiar with the illus- trious work of Laennec will remember that, although in no degree detracting from the value of the passage to which refer- ence has now been made, there is in the chapter in which it occurs not a little confusion, occasioned by the want of a proper dis- tinction, at the time impossible, between the true melanosis of the lung, an undoubted neoplasm, or new formation of cancer- ous nature, and the pigmentary substance with which we are at present more immediately concerned. To the disease which is generally known under one or other of the names placed at the- head of this paper, but which has also been described as Carbo- naceous Bronchitis (Dr. Walshe); Black Phthisis (Dr. Makel- lar); Black Spit (J. B. Thomson) ; and Mclanose clu Poumon i “ Trait 6 do L’Auscultation Mediate,” deuxieme partie, Productions accidentelles developpees dans le Poumon.
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