C ®S7 3 
XIV. Farther particulars of a case of Pneumato - thorax. By 
John Davy, M. D. F 1 R. S. 
Read March 1824. 
In the last communication which I had the honour of making 
to the Royal Society on the subject of pneumato-thorax , I 
expressed the hope that the patient, who had been operated 
on, and greatly relieved by tapping the chest, and permitting 
the accumulated air to escape, would eventually recover. 
This anticipation, I regret I cannot confirm. The case has 
terminated fatally ; and I now beg leave to describe briefly 
its progress. 
On the 17th of June, about a month after the operation, 
when the patient appeared to be doing so well, there were 
symptoms indicating the supervention of hydro-thorax ;* 
and, in another week, these symptoms had so much increased, 
that they could not be mistaken. Avoiding minute details, 
it will be sufficient to observe that the patient, when he at- 
tempted to lie on the right side, was instantly seized with a 
fit of coughing ; and that when his body was shaken, the 
sound of fluid fluctuating in air in the left side of the chest 
was distinctly audible even at the distance of several yards. 
As the patients’ health was pretty good, it was deemed 
advisable, in consultation, to repeat the operation of paracen- 
tesis, and draw off the fluid, which was rapidly increasing, 
before the case should become desperate. 
• Vide Philosophical Transactions for 1822, p. 512. 
MDCCCXXIV. L 1 
