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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    Sometimes it extended into the large trunks arising from the aorta, more especially the carotids. With a single exception, this condition was only noticed in individuals aged from twenty to thirty-two yeai'S. (Cases i, xxx, liv, &c.) Organic alterations of the aorta, namely, the soft yellow patch, and the white cartilaginous patch, with the ulcerations they so frequently entail, and lastly, the osseous patch, were noticed with somewhat less frequency than red discoloration,—namely, in the sixth part only of my cases, either simple or complicated, in persons varying in age from thirty-five to seventy-five years. Generally speaking, these changes of texture were in a more advanced state, and more frequently met with, near the bifur- cation of the aorta than elsewhere. Reflecting upon the diminution in the mass of the circulating fluids in phthisis, we are naturally led to expect that the arte- ries, and more especially the aorta, must be of smaller caUber in persons dying of that afifection than in the victims of acute diseases. A difiference of this kind does actually exist, but it is perhaps less in amount than would, on first consideration, have been supposed. Thus, in twelve subjects, aged from twenty to thirty years, cut off by typhoid fever, the mean width of the aorta, on the level of the free borders of the sygmoid valves,— about one inch and two lines [3 centimeters] below the origin, of the left subclavian arterv,—about one inch and two lines [3 centimeters] above the cseliac axis,—and the same distance above the bifurcation of the vessel, was respectively about two inches five lines, one inch nine lines and a half, one inch and a half, and ten lines [about 60, 43, 38, and 20 millimeters]. Now in an equal number of phthisical subjects of the same age, the artery measured at the same points, about two inches four lines and a half, one inch eight lines and a quarter, one inch five lines and a half, and ten hues [57, 40^, 34|, and 20 millimeters]. The difference here exhibited is inconsiderable, but real nevertheless, and proportional in all parts of the vessel to its caliber; in such, manner, that where its dimensions are smallest, the difference was about one line [2 millimeters] less than anywhere else.^ ' The inequality of width of the aorta in the space comprised between the left sub- clavian and the cacliac axis, shows that that vessel is not formed of a succession of cylinders ; but that it is actually conoid.' I have satisfied myself that the case is the same with the femoral artery, the primitive carotid, and other vessels of less size.