THE LUNGS. 



1857 



trace the course of each fissure separately. The fissure of the right lung leaves the 

 vertebral column either at the fifth rib or at the interspace above or below it. The 

 fissure tends to follow the fifth rib, being in the axillary line still, either beneath it or 

 beneath an adjacent intercostal space. Towards the front the fissure gets relatively 

 lower, ending in most cases either at the fifth space or beneath the sixth rib, near 

 the junction of the bone and cartilage, from 5-10 cm. from the median line. The 

 secondary fissure of the right lung leaves the chief one somewhat behind the axillary 

 line, and, running about horizontally forward, ends at a very uncertain point. 

 Rochard, in his small series of twelve observations, found it at the third intercostal 

 space seven times. Once it was higher and four times lower. The fissure of the left 

 lung leaves the side of the spine at a less definite point, ranging in most cases 

 from beneath the third rib to the upper border of the fifth, and being sometimes even 



FIG. 1581. 



Semidiagrammatic reconstruction, showing relations of pleural sacs (blue) and lungs (red) to body-wall; 



posterior aspect. 



lower. At the axillary line it is at the fifth rib a little more often than at any other 

 particular point, but it is almost as often at the fourth and more often somewhere 

 below the fifth. Its termination is more constant than its course, being beneath the 

 sixth rib, or the space above or below it, usually from 6 1 1 cm. from the median 

 line. 1 



The relations of the bronchi to the chest-wall have not been studied on a suffi- 

 cient number of bodies for satisfactory conclusions. Blake 2 has had X-ray photo- 

 graphs taken of an adult body hardened with formalin, the bronchi being injected 

 with an opaque substance. The bifurcation was normally placed. We attach the 



1 Gazette des H6pitaux, 1892. Our description is almost wholly a synopsis of Rochard's 

 work. 



2 American Journal of the Medical Sciences, 1899. 



117 



