A practical inquiry into disordered respiration, distinguishing the species of convulsive asthma, their causes and indications of cure / by Robert Bree.

  • Bree, Robert, 1759-1839.
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical inquiry into disordered respiration, distinguishing the species of convulsive asthma, their causes and indications of cure / by Robert Bree. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    41/410 (page 11)
    RESnUATIOM. rxtcrnal to the air cavities of the lungs, the labour M’ill not be so great as if the cavities themselves were obstructed, and all the symptoms of Periodic Convulsive Asthma may not then be present, but a number suilicieiit to distinguish the Continued Asthma or Dijspnoca will attend. I » Whenever, then, some compression, or organic deran«:enient irritates the lun^s, the eftort which has been commonly called Di(ficullp of Breathings is excited. In the instance of hydrothorax, the compression arising from an extraneous material, there is considerable dyspnma, but in the expira- tion of Haller the compression being a natural operation of tbe system, it is not attended with uneasiness, and scarcely with conscious percep- tion. It may, therefore, be concluded, that this po- pular term, DilJiciiIty of Breathing, can only re- fer to such extraordinary contractions of the re- spiratory muscles, as are designed to remove of- fence ; there being no data in existence to prove that the functions of the animal system will be stopped by the atmospheric air being diminished to any specific measure, however small, in ordinary respirations. But besides this mistake, respecting the final cause of extraordinary respiration, some confusion