Essay 1 On malformations of the human heart : illustrated by numerous cases, and five plates containing fourteen figures; and preceded by some observations on the method of improving the diagnostic part of medicine / by J. R. Farre.

  • John Richard Farre
Date:
1814
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay 1 On malformations of the human heart : illustrated by numerous cases, and five plates containing fourteen figures; and preceded by some observations on the method of improving the diagnostic part of medicine / by J. R. Farre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    mittent. She died at the age of nineteen, without any material alteration in the affection of the heart, except what was denoted by the increasing unea- siness from its violent pulsation. The heart was very unequally dilated. The right auricle was as large as a child’s head of a year old, and filled with clots of blood. The venae cavae were much dilated: the inferior cava admitted with ease four fingers. The ostium ventriculi equalled in size the inferior cava. The tricuspidal valve was rigid, and in some places ossified. The ventricle seemed rather less than the auricle. The left auricle was extremely small. Instead of the left ostium ventriculi, a rigid septum, in some spots ossified, separated the auricle from the ventricle. It was perforated at its centre by a puckered aperture, of a size just sufficient to admit the tip of a little finger. The flaps of the mitral valve, which arose as usual, were stiff, and in some spots loaded with calcareous matter. The columnar carne* and chordze tendineae were healthy. The ventricle w'as also small, but proportionally thicker and stronger than usual. The aorta, at its origin, and through its whole course, was exceed- ingly small. In the cavities of the chest and pericardium a very few ounces of serum were found. II. b. Ostium Aorta 'Narrowed by having Two instead of Three Semilunar Valves. Dr. Baillie notices this variety as being very uncommon. It is represented in his engravings, plate 2. fig. 5. from Mr. Hunter’s museum; but I find no account of the case in his Morbid Anatomy, 8vo. edit. The following obser- vation affords an instance of this rare malformation. Mrs. , aged 24, a delicate woman, of the middle size, eight months married, in the eighth month of her pregnancy, died suddenly on Wednesday morning, the 27th of May, 1812. Mr. Saner, who resided on the spot, instantly attended. He found her countenance suffused and very livid, but she was already dead. On the 28th, twenty hours after her death, Mr. Saner favoured me with the opportunity of con- ducting the dissection, which w'as done with the assistance of himself and Mr. J. Burrows. The brain minutely examined, presented only the natural appearances. The longitudinal and lateral sinuses of the dura mater were rather more turgid with fluid blood than they usually are. The heart had the parietes of its left ventricle much thickened, and the valves of its aorta malformed. Two, instead of three semilunar valves, had