246 Epidemics. 



cause of the absence of all sound, most likely lung apoplexy. 

 By forced inspiration is meant several efforts to fill the chest 

 with air by a strong voluntary effort. 



It will be said, Have not several of our societies of late 

 years given very full details of cases of chronic broncho- 

 pneumonia, and also of acute and sub-acute pleuro- 

 pneumonia ; and does not the Pathological Society, in its 

 "Transactions," give very careful reports of autopsies bearing 

 upon this very point in a very elaborate and careful manner ? 

 Why, therefore, enter into its initiatory indications with so 

 much form and detail ? Everybody knows it must have a 

 beginning, and also everybody knows that no two cases are 

 exactly alike ; therefore, such a parade of details is totally 

 unnecessary. 



Here and there one may be found who has examined this 

 lung affection with much care and exactness ; but for its 

 early manifestations there is scarcely a full detail yet given, 

 and for its full and careful description there is still an urgent 

 demand from the pen of some one familiar with the disease, 

 and able to do it that justice its importance demands. In 

 the meantime, this rough outline is given for those who have 

 not carefully examined it. But the important point in 

 treatment rests upon its early detection; and its total 

 painlessness, the equable breathing of the subject of it, and in 

 its early stage the very frequent clear resonance of the chest 

 on percussion, the frequent absence of cough and the 

 presence of dyspeptic symptoms, with, occasionally, a very 

 excitable heart all of these tend to lead the mind astray 

 from the real nature of a disease which, in its last stage, if 

 phthisis does not appear, yet itself is about equally fatal as 

 that destructive disease. 



Again, it will be said, Why should one man be familiar 

 with the commencement of a disease, and another equally 



