On the practical use of inhalations, in diseases of the throat and chest / [John Harwood].

  • Harwood, John, -1854.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the practical use of inhalations, in diseases of the throat and chest / [John Harwood]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cells; and supported by the peculiar tissue of the lungs, they chiefly compose the sides or walls of those micro¬ scopic cavities. Hence it is probable that the delicate coats of these blood vessels, constitute the only inter¬ vening substance, between the external atmosphere and the blood itself. Now as inhalations, combined with the air inspired, expand or dilate this infinitude of ultimate air-cells, and consequently pervade every portion of this membranous surface, we have reason to believe that their influ¬ ence extends to the more internal parenchymatous structure of the lungs also; through the absorbing property of the bronchial membrane. For this mem¬ branous lining of the air-passages, like the skin, is beset with inhaling or absorbing pores; and these bronchial absorbents, like those of the skin, are endowed with a power of selecting what they imbibe; as is shown in their absorption or non-absorption of noxious matters, from the various effluvia presented to them by the air in breathing ; and the same, of different medicinal or cura¬ tive agents, offered to them by inhalation. The operation of inhalation, therefore, thus consisting in the exposure of the whole of the internal surfaces of the lungs, to the effects of the agents inhaled, this process is employed in two capacities. It either com¬ municates to the lungs, the soothing action of warm vapour only, (which is indeed the internal medium of protection to those organs, afforded by nature herself, and the presence of which becomes apparent in the surcharged vapour of the air we expire,) or it conveys the active or curative principles of medicinal substances, by means of this vapour, to the immediate seat of irritation or disease; the useful or remedial principles of
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