A treatise on the diseases of the chest : in which they are described according to their anatomical characters, and their diagnosis established on a new principle by means of acoustick instruments / R.T.H. Laennec ; translated ... with a preface and notes by John Forbes.

  • Laennec, R. T. H. (René Théophile Hyacinthe), 1781-1826
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases of the chest : in which they are described according to their anatomical characters, and their diagnosis established on a new principle by means of acoustick instruments / R.T.H. Laennec ; translated ... with a preface and notes by John Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    cmr knowledge respecting tlie pathology of diseases, that the t.uherciilar affection, like cancer, is absolutely iiicnrahle, inasmuch as nature’s efforts towards effect- ing a cure are injurious, and those of art are useless. Bayle, in particular, advocates the incurability of this disease; he, however, admits the possibility of its being almost indefinitely prolonged. The observations contained in the treatise of M. Bayle, as well as the remarks made in the preceding chapter, on the development of tubercles, sufficiently prove the idea of the cure of consumption in its early stage to be perfectly illusive. Tubercles tend essen- tially to encrease in size and to become soft. Nature and art may retard or even arrest their progress, hut neither can reverse it. But while I admit the incu- rability of consumption in the early stages, I am con- vinced, from a great number of facts, that, in some rare cases, the disease is curable in the latter stages, that is, qfte?' the softening of the tubercles and the formation of an ulcerous excavation. Occasionally, while examining the lungs of sub- jects that had suffered from chronic catarrh, we find irregular cavities lined by a semi-cartilaginous mem- brane in all respects similar to that described above, and these cavities accord perfectly with the tuber- culous exulcerations, except that they are empty. In carefully investigating the history of such subjects, we find that they all refer the origin of their catarrh to a violent anterior disease which bore the character of consumption, so strongly as to make their case, at the time, be considered desperate. On the other hand, in subjects dead of consump- D