22:2 ON EXPECTORATED MATTER. 



city than cream. It is not apt to entangle air, and there- 

 fore it immediately mingles with water, rendering it milky; 

 and presently subsides to the bottom, leaving the water 

 clear, or at least whey-coloured. It appears to the naked 

 eye uniform in its texture; and nearly so under the simple 

 lens: but under the microscope thousands of globules simi- 

 lar to those of the blood are seen, which are indestructible 

 as those above related belonging to another kind of expec- 

 torated matter. 

 Not from ul- The substance, of which I am now speaking, is most fre- 

 e«aatiaii. quently excreted in the latter stages of pulmonary phthisis, 



for many weeks successively. It is taken for granted, that 

 this matter is from a breach of surface or ulceration ; but 

 on examination after death, such a state was not found, in 

 many instances, under my observation, although the lungs 

 were as usual full of tubercles and vomicae. This puriform 

 matter is occasionally expectorated in certain other diseases. 

 The last summer my colleague, Dr. Nevinson, furnished 

 me with several ounces of this sort of substance, but of a 

 ' greenish hue, and of the consistence of thin cream ; which 

 vas expectorated by a woman in the third week from the 

 attack of the measles. In a few days she died. On the ex- 

 amination of the lungs very carefully, by the excellent house 

 surgeon of St. George's hospital, Mr. Dawes, no ulceration 

 eould 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 ex- 

 pectorated 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 matter, which all 

 >Yho saw it called pus, and as usual it was considered to 

 arise from an ulceration, or suppurated tubercles ; but, on 

 examination after death, the disease was ascertained to be 

 condensation of the lungs to the consistence of liver, with 

 water in the cavities of the chest, and nothing more. 

 Opaque fiscid 5. Opaque viscid matter of the third, and perhaps fourth 

 tnattei. g^j^f^ above distinguished, appearing in nodules, and irre- 



/ gular figured mas:<es, mixed with transparent slimy matter 



of the second sort. 



It is not unusual to see the mixture of these two dif* 



ferent 



