Lectures delivered at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, 1883-1884 / by Robert J. Lee.

  • Lee, Robert James
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures delivered at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, 1883-1884 / by Robert J. Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    especially to children, if they are brought too near the mouth of a kettle. When a vessel containing water is placed over a spirit lamp, and the temperature of the vapour is reduced by more rapid diffusion than in the case of a kettle, there is, of course, less risks of accidents, and I should advise you to adopt the latter plan for this reason. I have taken advantage of a principle which affords us the most convenient and perfect means of treatment by in- halation, and which I will briefly explain to you. When a jet of steam issues from an orifice of known dimensions, and is directed along a tube also of definite dimensions a current of air is obtained by the propulsive force of the steam jet, which current may be regulated both in amount and in temperature by varying the force of the jet and the amount of air admitted into the tube. In the machine before you, you see how this principle may be applied in practice. This machine is of large size, and will continue to supply a current] of warm vapour for eight or nine hours, and the current will be constant in amount and in temperature if the heating power is not altered. By using a solution of carbolic acid and wafer in the proportion of one of the former to 80 or 100 of the latter, we obtain a carbolised vapour of con- stant and definite character, and with this we can judge of the value of the method of treating whooping-cough or any other malady with carbolic acid vapour. The principle here adopted may be applied on a much smaller scale as in this little inhaler which has found in- creasing favour with the profession, as the scientific principle on which it is constructed has been better understood. You may possibly imagine that the consideration of this subject is hardly one deserving of attention, and that it is a matter of very little importance how inhalation is managed. It is, however, by strict attention to details of this kind that we can reasonably expect any satisfactory results, and I suspect
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