Case of a foreign body impacted in the orifice of the third branch of the right bronchus : with remarks / by John Gregory Forbes.

  • Forbes, John Gregory.
Date:
[1850]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of a foreign body impacted in the orifice of the third branch of the right bronchus : with remarks / by John Gregory Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    portion it was coughed out without having produced any very serious and irremediable mischief/ and a rare case is recorded by Royer Collard/ in which no thoracic disease appeared to have been induced. The patient, a lunatic in the Maison de Charenton, swallowed a piece of mutton bone. It gave rise to no symptoms indicative of affection of the respiratory organs, and on examining his body six years afterwards, no lesion whatever of the lungs or air-passages was discovered, though it was fixed in the bronchial tubes. Another case3 is given by the same author, in which a nail remained in a bronchial tube, it was supposed, for two or three years, without the occurrence of any symptoms. The patient, however, died at last with cough, expectoration, and fever, after an illness of a fortnight. The nail was found in the left bronchus, partially oxidized, the lung was filled with tubercles, for the most part softened, and the bronchial membrane was thickened. In other cases on record, inflammation and suppuration took place, by which the foreign body was loosened and expelled, and even under this complication some patients recovered.4 But such favorable results cannot be anticipated with any confidence. In by far the larger proportion of cases of this description which have been recorded, much suffering was endured, severe pulmonary inflammation was set up, and though life was in some instances prolonged for several years, the patients at last succumbed, worn out by the continued irritation and hectic, before or shortly after they were unburdened of the cause of their misery.5 1 Browne on Tracheotomy; Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. xxx, p. 290. 2 Rouvelle Bibliotheque Medicale, vol. i, Feb. 1826, pp. 196-200. 3 Ibid. 4 Browne on Tracheotomy. A case, by Mr. Runn, in Prov. Med. and Surg. Journal, July 25, 1849, in which a “puff dart” had been fixed in the left bronchus, and was ejected with a quart of pus. Case by Mr. Travers, jun., in Med.-Chirurg. Transactions, vol. xxiii, 1840. Case by Dr. Craigie, in his Pathological Anatomy, 1848, p. 590. 5 Browne on Tracheotomy; Craigie’s Pathological Anatomy, 1848, p. 589.