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. 1857 Excerpt: ...observed in young subjects, and even in children. Of 100 old persons examined by Eoge"e, not less than fifty-one had calcareous concretions. 13. Hypertrophy.--The lungs are liable to hypertrophy. It is a law of the animal economy that in proportion as a part is exercised so will be its size and strength. This is ...
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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. 1857 Excerpt: ...observed in young subjects, and even in children. Of 100 old persons examined by Eoge"e, not less than fifty-one had calcareous concretions. 13. Hypertrophy.--The lungs are liable to hypertrophy. It is a law of the animal economy that in proportion as a part is exercised so will be its size and strength. This is strikingly exemplified in the muscular system, and also in some of the other organs, as the lungs, testicles, kidneys, and mammae. Under such circumstances, the organ increases in bulk, its texture becomes more firm and elastic, and the air-cells are enlarged, at the same time that their walls are thickened and strengthened. The augmentation of volume is sometimes extraordinary. I have more than once seen the hypertrophous lung permanently dilate the chest, force down the diaphragm, displace the heart and mediastinum, and project up nearly two inches into the neck between the clavicle and spinal column. In this way, although one lung may be entirely gone, the individual may live for years in tolerable comfort. 14. Atrophy.--Atrophy of the lungs, the reverse of the condition just described, is generally produced by accidental circumstances. In great emaciation of the body, such, for example, as is witnessed in protracted fevers, or painful local disorders, the lungs do not seem to participate in the decay, at all events, not to any appreciable extent. That these organs experience some changes in cases of wilful abstinence, when all the other viscera are in a normal state, has been already seen in the chapter on gangrene; but what these changes are, whether they consist in some structural lesion, or in some derangement simply of the nutritive function, has not been determined. In old age, the pulmonary tissue becomes sensibly altered; it no longe...
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