Abstract of cases in which pseudo-membranous substances have been discharged from the bowels / by William Thomson.

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
[1836 or 7]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Abstract of cases in which pseudo-membranous substances have been discharged from the bowels / by William Thomson. 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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    have been discharged from the Bowels. By Wili.tam Thomson, M. D., Fellow of the lloyal Colleges of Phy- sicians and Surgeons. At the conclusion of a recent communication relative to the discharge, by stool, of portions of the entire cylinder of the intestinal tube, (No. 127 ) I suggested that there are two sources of fallacy to which we are exposed in admitting indivi- dual cases to be of this nature. In the first place, the substance discharged may,—if we may trust to the statements of authors on this point,—consist merely of the lining membrane of a por- tion of intestine, detached, by some morbid process, from the rest of its coats ; or, in the second place, the substance discharged may have formed no part of the texture of the bowel, but be merely an adventitious exudation from its internal surface, simi- lar to that which is formed on the mucous membrane of the la- rynx and trachea in croup, and which is occasionally expelled from that situation in the efforts of vomiting or of coughing; or to that which is liable to be formed on the surface of the up- per part of the alimentary canal, in consequence of aphthous af- fection, constituting the disease which, as occurring in new-born children, has been termed Muguet by the French. To this pel- licular form of exudation on the surface of mucous membranes, it has recently, as is well known, been proposed to apply the ge- neral designation of Diphtheritis. I confess, I am disposed to entertain doubts, whether there be any morbid process, hy which we can suppose the mucous mem- brane of the intestinal tube to be detached from its other coats, in portions of considerable size, and at the same time of suffici- ent consistence to retain its membranous character. This, how- ever, is a point to which I shall afterwards advert. At present I may remark, that if the detached lining membrane of a portion