BROKEN-WIND. 169 



Still, with Delafond, perhaps, shall we be justified in 

 coming to the conclusion that, in three cases out of four, 

 emphysema is to be found. And with this, let it be ob- 

 served, it is very common to meet with thickening, or 

 otherwise altered condition, of the membrane lining the 

 air-passages. Indeed, Laennec has ingeniously shown how 

 these morbid states are connected; an explanation which 

 has been adopted by Delafond, though condemned by 

 D'Arboval on account of broken- wind being proved to 

 proceed from other causes. 



Asthma and broken-wind have been compared, some 

 regarding them as bearing " a close resemblance,^' while 

 others maintain their identity cannot be established. It 

 would be an easy matter to prove both parties either right 

 or wrong, or, under varying circumstances, both right and 

 wrong. The two disorders resemble each other in the 

 circumstance of their proximate causes not being always 

 the same; but they will be found very unlike in their 

 symptoms and effects when their proximate causes are 

 dissimilar; and yet extremely alike when those causes are 

 identical, as the following account, extracted from Martinet's 

 Pathology, will show ; — 



'' Emphysema or the lungs (asthma) is characterised by 

 habitual dyspnoea, recurring by fits, which are exceedingly 

 irregular in their periods of return and duration, and are 

 subject to be increased by any cause, however slight, that 

 affects the respiration. The movements of the thorax are 

 irregular, and habitually unequal; the inspiration is shorty 

 high, and rapid; but expiration is slow, incomplete, and as it 

 were graduated: there is thus a manifest difference in the 

 duration of the two movements. During the fits the re- 

 spiration becomes convulsive. On percussion the chest 

 emits a sound more clear than in the healthy state ; 

 but this unnatural resonance is not given equally at 

 all points, as the disease seldom extends to the whole 

 lung. When the affection occurs at both sides, we ex- 

 perience much difficulty in estimating this increase of 

 sound, as we have then no subject of comparison ; and 



