Practical remarks on disease of the heart, and the dropsy following it / by Alexander Kilgour.

  • Kilgour, Alexander.
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical remarks on disease of the heart, and the dropsy following it / by Alexander Kilgour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PRACTICAL REMARKS ON DISEASE OF THE HEART, AND THE DEOPSY FOLLOWING IT, BY ALEXANDER KILGOUR, M.D., ONE OF THE PHYSICIANS TO THE ABERDEEN INFIRMARY. [FROM THE MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, FOR SEPTEMBER 1850.] In the thirty-third Number of this Journal, or that for September 1843, I published some short “ Notes on Diseases of the Heart,” in which I stated as the result of my experience—but submitting my opinion with every deference to that of others—that the u bruit de soufflet” is of value as a sign to us, when permanently present, that disease does exist somewhere in the heart, pericardium, or large ves¬ sels, but that it is no sure guide to the special site of the lesion. It was my conviction that authors, and particularly young authors, who meditated much on their cases at home, and were so ready to explain everything on mechanical principles, were apt to refine a little too much, and lay too great stress on a diagnosis from the ab¬ normal sounds, call them by what name they may, alone. Nearly seven years’ longer experience, in which I have seen many additional cases of heart disease in hospital and private practice, has not brought me to materially alter that opinion. I allow that we may often make a pretty good guess as to the seat of the disease, but that is nearly all. “ Guesses at truth,” however, are often interest¬ ing and even instructive; and as an easy mode of impressing on my students in the clinical class the usual views, or guesses, as to the seat of the morbid sounds of the heart, and probable condition of the parts causing them, I have been in the way of exhibiting the following diagram. 1 have reason to think it has been convenient, for I have been applied to for copies of it by several of my medical brethren. There are not many—few, perhaps, but those who make heart dis¬ ease their hobby in their closets or in practice—that can always carry in their minds, or bring to their recollection, the seats and causes of the abnormal sounds of the heart as given by the writers on these diseases; but a copy of this diagram, which can be easily made on a slip of paper, and carried in the pocket-book, will at a glance give the practitioner the information which has passed from his memory. SUTHERLAND AND KNOX, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH.