Remarks on the different forms of pulmonary consumption / By Thomas B. Peacock.

  • Thomas Bevill Peacock
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the different forms of pulmonary consumption / By Thomas B. Peacock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    27/84 (page 23)
    irritating particles of stone or metal or of the two combined, lodge in the mucous membrane of the smaller tubes and in the cells of the lungs, and there set up inflammation, which becomes excited into more active operation under the influence of cold. Doubt- less, also, the habits of the workmen conduce to the evil. It unfortunately happens that in all dangerous occupations in which the duration of life is much curtailed, the men are apt to be reckless and dissipated, and to add in that way to the other evils with which they have to contend. In this and the pneumonic description of phthisis the state of the constitution and the condition of the lungs varies very greatly from that in the constitutional form of the disease, and also to a less extent from that in the second variety. True tuberculous deposition is not found, but, on the contrary, the tissue of the lung is indurated and converted into a solid grey-coloured material, and though cavities are often formed, they are due to the breaking down of the lung tissue under a latent or passive form of inflammation. These kinds of disease are generally seen in persons who have attained or exceeded the middle period of life; who have been long placed in unfavorable sanitary circumstances, suffering from poverty and destitution, undergoing an amount of bodily exertion for which their strength is unequal, living or working- in damp and close ill-ventilated dwellings and workshops, and very frequently leading dissipated lives. Indeed, Dr. Sutton has pointed out that there is a special form of consumption to which spirit-drinkers are liable; and every one must have ob- served the rapidly fatal character of the disease in such persons when once developed.1 I have also frequently noticed the rapidity with which the disease usually progresses in persons who have been exhausted by prolonged or close attendance upon the sick, and especially in the cases of wives who have nursed their husbands while labouring under phthisis. Generally speaking, however, this description of phthisis is more common in men than in women, and obviously from their greater exposure to the causes which act as predisponents and excitants to the disease. The following case, which is an abstract of one published in the ‘Pathological Transactions’ for 1861, very well illustrates the condition of the lungs in cases of “French millstone makers’ phthisis.” 1 “ Fibroid Degeneration of the Lungs,” « Mod.-Chir. Trans.,’ vol. xlviii, 1SG5 ]>. 287.