46 
REVIEW. 
BRONCHOTOMY BREATHING TUBES. 
The instrument noticed in our Number for August last appears to 
us, on further examination, so well calculated to answer the purpose 
of its intention, that we have had a drawing made of the one now 
upon our table, which Mr. Dawes has had constructed of German 
silver, and thereby has, in a great measure, removed what we 
before complained of, viz. its weight and cumbersomeness. 
Mr. Ernes writes to us, that he bought the two tubes—the 
pewter and the brass one, which somewhat differ in their con¬ 
struction—some ten or twelve years ago, from our worthy profes¬ 
sional fellow-labourer, M. Leblanc, whose inventions they are; 
and who at the time informed Mr. Ernes he had kept one similar to 
the instrument represented in the cut, in the windpipe of an entire 
horse, employed in drawing stone for building, for six years, and 
by that means had enabled him to work at times when the diffi¬ 
culty he experienced in his respiration was such that without the 
tube exertion would have been impossible to him. 
Mr. Ernes has had both tubes in use himself; indeed, he gene¬ 
rally employs them for the relief of symptoms of suffocation, and 
reaps real advantages from them, there being no chance of their 
becoming displaced in the neck, and an utter impossibility of their 
ever sinking into the canal of the windpipe. Objections have been 
made to the magnitude of the instrument—the one represented 
on the next page is half size : when the tube of the instrument, 
however, comes to be compared with that of the windpipe, such 
objections vanish. Some persons have thought it prudent to 
cover the external aperture of the tube, while the instrument was 
in the neck, with a wire gauze, to shut out dust and dirt. Such a 
precaution, however, Mr. Ernes considers quite unnecessary. 
a , a. a, The tubular part of the instrument, which is an oblong 
oval, for introduction through the incision made in the neck into 
the cavity of the windpipe ; in which it will be retained by the 
concave ascending plate b, proceeding from the upper border of 
its internal aperture, which in such manner acts as a stop, supe¬ 
riorly ; while c, acts as an inferior stop, as soon as it is turned 
over through the tube, by means of its hinge at d, and secured in 
