Foreign bodies in the air-passages : the substance of two clinical lectures delivered in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow / by Hector C. Cameron.

  • Cameron, Hector Clare, 1843-1928.
Date:
[between 1890 and 1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foreign bodies in the air-passages : the substance of two clinical lectures delivered in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow / by Hector C. Cameron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    on the right; on wliieh side also it had a peculiar whistling character. Sliortly after my examination of him, he had a violent but short par- oxysm of coughing. Having with some difficulty obtained his father’s permission for immediate operation, I at once had the child chloro- formetl and opened the trachea. The point of a pair of dissecting for- ceps having been introduced into the tracheal wound and opened, cough immediately supervened, and the stone could be felt striking against the forceps with each expiration. The wound was too small to allow of the stone being shot out, and when it was afterwards enlarged the stone could no longer be felt. After trying unsuccessfully to dislodge it from bcloAv with a loop of wire, I passed a pair of long-curved for- ceps doAvn into the right bronchus, when I at once felt and grasped it. During its withdraAval it slipped from the forceps, but Avas coughed into the AA^ound and again seized. The patient has made an excellent re- coA'^ery, although for a time there Avas a considerable area of consolida- tion in the left lung, coming on a fcAv days after operation, with fever, quickened respiration, and cough. The points in this case to Avhich I desire to direct your special at- tention are principally three in number,—viz., the very alarming symp- toms produced by the foreign body at its first entrance and while it still lingered in the neighborhood of the glottis and larynx; the almost complete cessation of symptoms Avheu it sank doAvu into the chest; and, lastly, the satisfactory result of an early opening of the windpipe. These matters deserve noAV a more extended consideration. There are tAvo parts of the respiratory passages in Avhich foreign bodies may reside for a considerable time Avithout exciting alarm, or, indeed, much noftce; but yet, in the case of both, symptoms 'will sooner or later arise demanding attention. These tAvo situations are the nostrils and the bronchi. Let me narrate shortly to you the history and symptoms of three typical cases of foreign body in the nostril. (a) In the summer of 1871 a woman brought her child, three years of age, to the GlasgoAV Royal Infirmary, Avhen I Avas giving advice in the out-door department. There Avas a stinking discharge from the right nostril, of six Aveeks’ duration. The mother stated that this dis- charge was confined entirely to the one nostril, and her statement was borne out by the fiict that the upper lip Avas scalded o]iposite the right nostril, but was quite normal in appearance on the left side. The child Avas otherwise healthy. Various mcdicid men had been consiiltcxl, and (Merent astringent and antisejitic applications had been trial, without effect. Suspecting the presence of a Ibreign body, 1 jirobed the cavity o the nostril, but could strike upon nothing hard. Jn in-obing, how-