On Expectorated Matter, 1 7 



but on examination after death, snch a state was not found, 

 in many instances, under my observation, although the 

 lungs were as usual full of tubercles and vomicse. This 

 puriform matter is occasionally expectorated in certain other 

 diseases. The last summer my colleague, Dr. Ncvinson, 

 furnished me with several ounces of this sort of substance, 

 but of a greenish hue, and of the consistence of thin cream ; 

 which was expectorated by a woman in the third week 

 from the attack of the measles. In a few days she died. 

 On examination of the lungs very carefully, by the excel- 

 lent house surgeon of St. George's hospital, Mr. Dawes, 

 no ulceration could be discovered in the trachea or in the 

 bronchial tubes ; nor were any tubercles or abscesses found 

 in the lungs. The patient, according to my information, 

 had expectorated more than a pint of this fluid every twenty- 

 four hours for a week before death. In another hospital 

 case, a man laboured under a cough with spitting of mat- 

 ter, which all who saw it called pus, and as usual it wa3 

 considered to arise from an ulceration, or suppurated tu- 

 bercles ; but, on examination after death, the disease was. 

 ascertained to be condensation of the lungs, to the con- 

 sistence of liver, with water in the cavities of the chest, 

 and nothing more. 



''5. Opaque viscid matter of a third, an d^ perhaps fourth 

 sort, above distinguished, appearing in nodules, and irre- 

 gular figured masses, mixed with transparent slimy matter 

 of the second sort. 



'*• It is not unusual to see the mixture of these two different 

 kinds, from severe fits of coughing in that constant epidemy 

 of the British islands, the winter chronical pneumonia. 



" Different parts of the bronchial membrane being in 

 different states, may account for the secretion of the two 

 different matters. This seems more probable than that thes» 

 different matters should be secreted from the same part; 

 although it is true that the same part does secrete at one 

 period transparent thin slime, and at another an opaque 

 thick matter. The former is occasioned by great irritation 

 of the membrane, and the latter is the effect of a more 

 gradual secretion with much less irritation. 



" For the sake of brevity, I avoid a further description. 

 The practical application of these observations, however 

 important, would not be suitable in this place. 



'* The sixth and seventh kinds of expectorated substances 

 being secreted after a quite different manner, and being 

 very different in their nature from the preceding five kinds, 

 I shall not give an account of thera in this paper/' 



Vol. 35. No. 141. Jan, 1810. B [Th« 



