CHAP. V.

OF

DYSPNOEA, OR DIFFICULT BREATHING.

T

MCCCLXV.

HE exercise of respiration, and the

organs of it, have fo conftant and confiderable a connection with almost the whole of the other functions and parts of the human body, that upon almoft every occasion of disease, refpiration must be affected. Accordingly fome difficulty and dif

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diforder in this function, are in fact fymptoms very generally accompanying difease.

MCCCLXVI.

Upon this account the fymptom of difficult breathing deserves a chief place and an ample confideration in the general fyftem of Pathology; but what share of confideration it ought to have in a treatise of Practice, I find it difficult to determine.

MCCCLXVII.

On this fubject, it is, in the firft place, necessary to distinguish between the symptomatic and idiopathic affections; that is, between those difficulties of breathing which are symptoms only of a more general affection, or of a disease fubfifting primarily in other parts than the organs of respira

tion, and that difficulty of breathing which depends upon a primary affection of the lungs themselves. The various cafes of fymptomatic dyspnoea I have taken pains to enumerate in my Methodical Nofology, and it will be obvious they are fuch as cannot be taken notice of here.

MCCCLXVII.

In my Nofology I have also taken pains to point out and enumerate the proper, or at least the greater part of the proper, idiopathic cases of dyspnoea; but from that enumeration it will, I think, readily appear, that few, and indeed hardly any, of thefe cafes will admit or require much of our notice in this place.

MCCCLXIX.

The Dyspnoea Sicca, Species 2d, the

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Dyfpnoea Aerea, p. 3d, the Dyfpnoea Terrea, fp. 4th, and Dyfpnea Thoracica, Sp. 7th, are fome of them with difficulty known, and are all of them difeafes which in my opinion do not admit of cure. All, therefore, that can be faid concerning them here is, that they may admit of fome palliation; and this, I think, is to be obtained chiefly by avoiding a plethoric state of the lungs, and every circumftance that may hurry respiration,

MCCCLXX.

Of the Dyspnoea Extrinfeca, fp. 8th, I can fay no more, but that these external causes marked in the Nofology, and perhaps fome others that might have like effects, are to be carefully avoided; or, when they have been applied, and their effects have taken place, the disease is to be pal

The other fpecies, though enumerated as idiopathic, can hardly be confidered as fuch, or as requiring to be treated of here.

The Dyspnoea Catarrhalis, fp. ft. may be confidered as a species of catarrh, and is pretty certainly to be cured by the fame remedies as that species of catarrh which depends rather upon the increased afflux of mucus to the bronchiæ, than upon any flammatory ftate in them.

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The Dyfpnoea Aquofa, fp. 5th, is certainly to be confidered as a species of dropfy, and is to be treated by the fame remedies as the other fpecies of that disease.

The Dyfpnoea Pinguedinofa, fp. 6th, is in like manner to be confidered as a