An essay on the organic diseases and lesions of the heart and great vessels / from the clinical lectures of J. N. Corvisart ... ; published, under his inspection, by C. E. Horeau ... ; translated from the French, with notes, by Jacob Gates.

  • Corvisart des Marets, Jean Nicolas, Baron, 1755-1821.
Date:
1812
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the organic diseases and lesions of the heart and great vessels / from the clinical lectures of J. N. Corvisart ... ; published, under his inspection, by C. E. Horeau ... ; translated from the French, with notes, by Jacob Gates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    blood. During the day, another quantity of fluid was discharged, yet respiration was equally difficult. 11th. No sleep, respiration more easy ; the abdomen less swoln, the countenance also altered; the day, was very quiet, some fever in the evening. 12th. The serosity flowed still profusely through the wound ; this serosity exhaled a strong and fetid odor; injections were administered, composed of equal parts of a decoction of barley and cinchona. The chest when struck sounded well on both sides ; the pulse was weak and frequent. 13th. The night was very good. During the day, cough more fatiguing, discharge from the wound of a quantity of water sufficiently copious to lead us to be- lieve that it was constantly forming; pulse frequent, a little more steaely than at night. 14th, 15th, and 16th. The symptoms became more and more alarming; the pain returned in the left side ; some irregularity in the pulse ; she elied the 17th. On opening the body, the lips of the wound appear- ed gangrenous ; there was a little serosity in the right cavity of the chest: the lung on this side was sound ; the internal part of the left cavity was covered with granulations. The lung on this side was small, hard, scirrhous and flattened against the mediastinum ; the pe- ricardium thick, whitish, was very closely united to the heart, without a possibility of separating the least por- tion of it without the assistance of a cutting instrument; the heart, whose substance appeared discolored, was, with its envelope, pressed up toward the right and supe- rior part of the thorax. I have quoted this case in preference to any other, be- cause it gives me the opportunity of saying that, hav- ing often performed the operation for empyema, in anal- ogous cases, I think I have ascertained that it seldom procures an ephemeral relief, but in all these cases, hast- ens the death of the patient.