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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    continued cough. Among two hundred and thirty suhjects dying of various acute and chronic diseases two only were thus aft'ected;—in one of these persons the original affection was of the heart; in the other caries of the spine. In both of them the great curvature of the stomach lay on the same level as the crista of the ileum, and the liver of large size was seated low in the abdomen; so that, whenever the conditions of stomach re- ferred to were present, there was an invariable relation between the state of the liver and that of the stomach. The textural changes of the latter organ principally impli- cated its mucous membrane. This was softened and attenuated, sometimes even destroyed in certain cases : of a more or less bright red colour, and sometimes thickened anteriorly in others; or there were instances in which the red discoloration, accom- panied with very considerable softening, was limited to the fundus. In some cases there were ulcerations; more frequently the mucous membrane exhibited a very remarkable mammil- lated aspect, &c. I shall describe these different states in the order in which they have now been enumerated. § 2. Softening, with Attenuation, of the Mucous Membrane of the Stomach. This form of anatomical change, which I have already de- scribed elsewhere,^ existed in about one fifth of the cases, in nineteen out of ninety-six subjects. Its most common seat was the upper part and more especially the fundus of the stomach not unfrequently it implicated half the surface of the ^iscus, sometimes more,—or it was limited to a space varjnng from twenty-eight inches five lines to thirty-six inches [72 to 90 centimeters] only. (Cases i, iii, iv, vii, l, lv, xl, xxx.) The parts affected with the change under consideration had a blueish white, or slightly yellowish hue, were free from mu- cus, and remarkable for the number, more or less considerable, of large vessels ramifying upon them, and either empty or filled with blackish blood. These parts were sunken, and the mucous membrane more or less prominent around them. These different appearances struck the observer on first sight, and pointed out the places which had undergone the change in ques- ' Mcmoires ou llechcrclies anatomico-patliologiques. Paris, 1826. p. 1 ct seq.