A practical and historical treatise on consumptive diseases / Deduced from original observations, and collected from authors of all ages.

  • Thomas Young
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical and historical treatise on consumptive diseases / Deduced from original observations, and collected from authors of all ages. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fending substances. This action of coughing is instinctively and almost convulsively excited by the irritation, which is sympathetically referred to the neighbourhood of the larynx, where a sensation of tickling is felt. In a similar man- ner, the still more involuntary action of sneezing . is directed by nature to the expulsion of foreign substances from the fauces and the nostrils: the assage being. first closed at the back of the mouth, and the soft palate being suddenly de- pressed, so as to’ allow the condensed air to pass into the nostrils, at the same moment that the base of the tongue descends, and opens the way into the mouth. } The qualities of the matter expectorated may _ be extremely different, without materially altering the severity or danger of the disease. “The mucus is often of a bluish cast ; and it becomes whitish, as Bennet has observed, when exposed to heat : a change ‘depending in all probability on the — partial coagulation.of mucus, which Dr. Pearson has described as occurring about the temperature of 160°, and which seems to depend on the pre- sence of albumen. When* the expectoration be- gins to become purulent, its taste is sweetish, -and sometimes. saltish: thus Bennet says, that - many consumptive persons have died at Bristol, after expectorating only a sweetish substance, with very little cough: he also notices, as a fatal symptom, an ash coloured clay like expectora-