Pulmonary consumption; its etiology, pathology and treatment : with an analysis of 1000 cases to exemplify its duration and modes of arrest / by C. J. B. Williams and Charles Theodore Williams.

  • Williams, Charles J. B. (Charles James Blasius), 1805-1889.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pulmonary consumption; its etiology, pathology and treatment : with an analysis of 1000 cases to exemplify its duration and modes of arrest / by C. J. B. Williams and Charles Theodore Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    PREFACE The first edition of this work appeared many years ago, and was founded principally on the large and mature experience iu Pulmonary Consumption of Dr. C. J. B. Williams, whose extensive records of cases were carefully analysed to determine what influence the progress in the treatment of the disease by hygiene, medicine and climate had had on its duration, and it was proved that this had quadrupled. A second great aim of Dr. C. J. B. Williams was to demonstrate that many of the phenomena of phthisis were due to a decline or deficiency in the vitality of the bioplasm, causing inflammatory or other processes to result in short-lived productions, and that much might be done by appropriate treatment to correct this ten- dency and to raise the standard of tissue formation. That Consumption might possibly have a septic origin was shadowed forth in the view that one class of the agents of causation were ' septic influences, which tend to blight or corrupt portions of the bioplasm of the blood or of the lym- phatics, and thus sow the seeds of decay.' The tubercle bacillus, the great discovery of Koch, may truly be called the septic element of Consumption, though others may exist, and it may be said to exercise a powerfully corrupting influence on the blood and lymph of the body, after the first infective centre has been established. My father's retirement from practice nearly twelve years ago threw the sole responsibility of preparing a second edition on my shoulders, and I might well have shrunk from the task had I not enjoyed the advantage of being first his pupil and