Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis.

  • Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
Date:
1844
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    having been negligently recorded. Besides, as my researches bear upon a considerable number of points, many of them would have appeared deficient in solidity of basis, had I in each case confined myself to details connected with a single particular. In order to lessen the tediousness of their perusal, I have drawTi up all my cases on the same plan, as follows. In the first paragraph I relate the condition of the functions between the commencement of the patient's illness, and his admission into hospital; in a second are enumerated all peculiarities detected in a state of the various functions when I saw the patient for the first time; and then a separate paragraph is devoted to the description of the varying state of each of those functions till the occurrence of death. The external appearances of the body, and the various unusual conditions observed in the head, the neck, the chest, and the abdomen are next described in sepa- rate paragraphs. In this manner, all confusion is avoided, each subject has its own particular place, and if the reader be desirous of ascertaining what symptoms depended upon any given morbid change, he is only obliged to go through a single paragraph. Finding it impossible to relate all the cases which form the foundation of these researches, I have formed a somewhat different arrangement of my subjects, from what I should other- wise have done. I have divided the work into two parts, and as anatomy is the firmest support of pathology, I have commenced this analysis with a general description of the morbid changes of the various organs. I have successively made known those of the lungs, the bronchi, the pleura, the trachea, the larynx, and the epiglottis; and then turned to those of the digestive or- gans, &c. And as I felt the importance, not only of describing all these morbid changes, but also of ascertaining whether those seated in other organs besides the lungs were proper to phthisis, I ascertained the condition of things in this respect in sub- jects cut off* by other chronic diseases indiscriminately, and whose cases I had collected. I compared the tAvo series of cases together, and from this comparison, have been deduced some additional general facts, which are not without their importance. I have stated the proportion of cases in which every morbid change was observed; so that my work supplies in all its parts, a sort of statistical view of ])hthisis.