Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis.
- Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
- Date:
- 1844
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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![tlie mucous membrane in their neiglibourliood did not appear manifestly tliickened; when deep, on the contrary it was some- what hai'der and thicker than in the natural state either imme- diately around them or in their interspaces. It was occasion- ally also of pinkish colour^ and in several instances the tissue separating it from the fibro-cartilage more or less puffy. The laryngeal surface of the organ was almost the exclusive seat of the ulcerations,—generally speaking too the lower half of that surface. I only once detected ulcerations on the lingual surface. (Case xx.) Their breadth varied from about one to about two lines [2 to 4 millimeters], or often more than this : in some cases indeed the mucous membrane has disappeai'ed from the entire of the laryngeal surface, (Cases viii, xxii, xxiii;) in four cases some part of the edge of the fibro-cartilage was destroyed, as well as the surface ulcerated, so as to give the organ a festooned appearance. In a fifth case the epiglottis was totally destroyed. (Case xxi.) I have not, in a single instance, met ^vith tuberculous granu- lations in the substance, or on the surface, of the epiglottis, larynx, or trachea; so that inflammation must be regarded as the most frequent cause of the ulcerations of those pai'ts. Another circumstance worthy of note is that these ulcera- tions were of double as frequent occmTcnce in men as in women. Thus, though each sex fm-nished the same number of patients, the women only presented six examples of this condition of the epiglottis, seven of the larynx, and nine of the trachea, out of, respectively, eighteen, twenty-three, and thirty-one cases of the kinds, which fell under my notice; and as the propor- tional frequency is about the same for the three kinds of ulcer- ation, the excess on the part of males is not, it is more than probable, the effect of chance. The statements just made are corroborated by the examina- tion of a tolerably large number of additional cases, which I have collected since the publication of the former edition of this work. Of one hundred and ninety subjects, carefully examined, seventy-six, upwards of one third of the whole number, pre- sented ulcerations in the trachea ; eighty of these subjects, who were females, supplied twenty-one examples of ulceration,—](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21513235_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
