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 : with plates / tr. from the French of R.T.H. Laennec, 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 : with plates / tr. from the French of R.T.H. Laennec, with a preface and notes by John Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    tubercles; it is even probable that this disease may, at one time, be the cause of their devolopment in subjects predisposed to them, and at another, may itself be excited by the irritation produced by a nu- merous crop of these. Any person at all accustomed to the examination of bodies after death must admit these positions ; yet it is, nevertheless, satisfactorily proved by a multitude of facts, that the growth of tubercles in the lungs most commonly takes place without any previous inflammation, and that, when inflammation is found contemporaneous with these, it is generally posterior in its origin. To convince us of the truth of this observation, we have only to attend to the progress of tubercles in scrophulous glands, which we frequently find to re- main swollen for a very long time, without the least redness, not only of the surrounding skin, but even of the gland itself. It is often not till after several years that inflammation comes on, which then seems to accelerate the softening of the tuberculous matter. Sometimes, however, this takes place, and the matter is even evacuated, without the supervention of what can properly be called inflammation. When this does occur it has evidently its seat in the tissues sur- rounding the scrophulous gland, and not in the gland itself. Another proof, equally strong, of what has just been advanced, is afforded by the simultaneous ex- istence of tubercles in different organs of the same subject. In consumptive patients it is very uncom- mon to find the tubercles confined to the lungs: almost always they occupy the intestinal coats, at the