Medical News

Abstract

Dr Spittal produced the lung of a woman who had been recently found dead, and of whose early history nothing was known. The apex of the left lung was adherent to the wall of the chest, and contained a cavity of the size of a walnut, lined with a bluish-white semi-transparent fibrous membrane. The cavity did not communicate with the bronchi; the pulmonary tissue surrounding it was infiltrated with black pigment, and contained a few small hard and greycoloured masses resembling chronic tubercle. A few "similar masses were found in the other lung towards its apex. When microscopically examined, they were seen to consist of an irregular corpuscular element. Dr S. was inclined to regard the preparation as illustrative of the spontaneous cure of tubercular disease of the lung. Dr Bennett, on examining the specimen, said that his impression was, that this was not an example of a tubercular cavity. There was no hardening round it, no distinct evidence of tubercle in the other lung, while the appearance of the cavity at once suggested the probability of its being a dilated bronchus. He exhibited a coloured lithographic drawing, which gave a good view of the appearances presented by the cicatrices of tubercular deposits in the lungs. Dr W. T. Gairdner said, that diminution in size, and even cicatrization of cavities, was not unfrequently seen in lungs in which the tubercular deposition was in active progress in other parts, and when there could be no reasonable doubt, therefore, that the cavities were tubercular in their character. The