Researches, Physiological and Anatomical Volume 1; In Two Volumes (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1839 Excerpt: ... XIV. AN ACCOUNT OF TWO CASES OF PNEUMATHORAX, WITH EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE ABSORPTION OF AIR, BY SEROUS AND MUCOUS MEMBRANES. The two following instances of Pneumathorax were communicated to the Royal Society, not as medical cases, but on account of the physiological questions connected with them, and the experiments of the same kind which they gave rise to. This alone could have entitled them to a place in the Philosophical Transactions, in which they were first published, in the volumes for 1823 and 1824; and it is this consideration which induces me to include them in the present work. Case I. Abraham Iredill, a private soldier, of the 7th Regiment of Foot, aged 30, was admitted into the General Military Hospital, at Fort Pitt, Chatham, on the 15th of January, 1823, labouring under phthisis pulmonalis, which proved fatal on the 1 lth of February. The disease in this its last stage exhibited some peculiarities, the cause of which, referrible to pneumathorax, was not discovered until after death, for the case being considered hopeless, and the weather being very cold, the requisite examination of the chest was intentionally omitted. The body was inspected fourteen hours after death. The right side of the chest exhibited a great degree of fulness; and it emitted, when struck, a hollow sound. On carefully opening the abdomen, the diaphragm was found protruding into the right hypochondrium, exhibiting a convex surface, almost conical, instead of concave; and it was tense and tympanitic. The right lobe of the liver was pressed into the epigastrium, and rested on a portion of the stomach and duodenum, and on a part of the transverse colon. Owing to the pressure of the liver, the pyloric portion of the stomach was removed from its natural situation t...