On rest and pain : a course of lectures on the influence of mechanical and physiological rest in the treatment of accidents and surgical diseases, and the diagnostic value of pain / delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862 by John Hilton.

  • John Hilton
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On rest and pain : a course of lectures on the influence of mechanical and physiological rest in the treatment of accidents and surgical diseases, and the diagnostic value of pain / delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862 by John Hilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    necessary, be compressed, and its gorged condition reduced to comparative emptiness. The kidneys also possess a strong elastic capsule for the same purpose, and are also subjected to pressure by the weight of the superimposed colon. The tunica albuginea, which surrounds the testicle, tends in like man- ner to empty that organ, and to give it rest. The lungs are extremely elastic; this elastic property aiding, without muscular force, the return of the lung to a state of rest or quietude after full inspirations which fill the lungs with air. I may here remark, that it is proved by the preparations before me, that the lungs have a very definite form, which adapts them, in their extremest healthy distention, to the sur- rounding structures, without encroaching upon any of them. Thus we find the lung especially grooved or hollowed out, to allow the cavae, descending aorta, arteria innominata, and left subclavian artery to pursue their courses without hindrance. The following is the plan I adopted successfully, more than twenty years ago, for the purpose of injecting the human lungs so as to display the exact configuration of their surfaces:— Remove the lungs and trachea carefully from the body without any laceration of their structures. Suspend the lungs in a pail or small tub (large enough to allow of their full expansion) containing water sufficiently hot to maintain melted tallow in a fluid state. Introduce a large tube into the trachea, and pour warm fluid tallow slowly through the tube until the lungs appear full; then leave them for a short time submerged in the water, hot enough to keep the tallow within the lungs in a state of fluid- ity. The air in the cells of the lungs will gradually rise and find its way out through the tube in the trachea, thus making space for the introduc- tion of more melted tallow. This method of proceeding must be repeated at intervals in the same slow and gentle manner until the whole interior of the lungs and trachea is filled with fluid tallow. The lungs are then to be immersed in tepid, and subsequently in cold, water, until the tallow becomes quite firm. Preparations made in this manner can be preserved for many years. One of the largest and the most remarkable excavations noticeable on the right lung is found at the base of the middle lobe. This excavation corresponds with, or receives, the right side of the right auricle of the heart; but for this the right auricle, when distended with blood, as it frequently is, would be pressed upon by the base of the wedge-shaped mass of lung which is termed the third lobe. Another advantage of this arrangement is, that the right auricle, thus distended, exerts its mechanical influence upon a small portion of lung, which yields, and permits its distention. It is probable that this fact constitutes one of the reasons for the existence of a third lobe in the right lung; and it is worthy of this additional remark, that this third lobe is wedge-shaped, a mechanical form seldom employed in the construction of the human body. This wedge-force is the most powerful mechanical force which can be em- ployed; and, being interposed between the upper and lower lobe, is com- petent to separate them from each other, and from the middle mediasti- num containing the heart, &c. The preparation which I now present to you demonstrates the anatomical relation of the right auricle and the base of the middle lobe of the right lung which I have just described. abundance in the spleen of these animals, may, I think, be explained by the frequent and sadden interruptions to which the digestive function must of necessity, from their mode of life, be subject in these animals.—[En.]