On stethometry : being an account of a new and more exact method of measuring & examining the chest, with some of its results in physiology and practical medicine also an appendix on the chemical and microscopical examination of respired air / by Arthur Ransome.
- Arthur Ransome
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On stethometry : being an account of a new and more exact method of measuring & examining the chest, with some of its results in physiology and practical medicine also an appendix on the chemical and microscopical examination of respired air / by Arthur Ransome. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![in.] every act of breathing, whatever the extent of the inspira- tion, the lower rib is the first to rise and the last to descend. The movements of the second rib are, moreover, less extensive than those of the fifth, as might have been anti- cipated from the greater length of the latter bone; but they are also less acute, and more equable in their rise and fall, showing that the work done by the upper ribs is per- formed more gradually, and that they remain at the point of extreme expansion rather longer than the lower ribs. This is, I think, what might have been anticipated in the inferior costal type of breathing, since it would need a longer time for the expansion of the upper portions of the lung, if the action had previously commenced in the lower part of the elastic organ—in other words, the inspired air would be partly taken up in expanding the lower part of the lung, and would need a longer time to overcome the elasticity of the upper lobes. In females, displaying as they do the true superior costal type of breathing, we might have expected to find that the upper ribs would have a very decided precedence in the order of movement, but this does not seem to have been very decidedly the case in the examples which I have been able to examine by this method. Several tracings of female respiratory curves were made with the kind assistance of Mr. Hawksley of Blenheim Street, and of these Figures 12 and 13 may be taken as examples. The curves show the simultaneous movements of the second and sixth ribs, in two healthy young women during forced breathing, in another instance both ordinary and extraordinary acts of breathing were registered. In each case the stays were removed during the experiments. The positions of the buttons of the stethograph were approximately the same as in the previously given tracing of male respiration.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20412101_0055.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
