THE FORMS, COMPLICATIONS, CAUSES, AND TREATMENT OF BRONCHITIS. BY JAMES COPLAND, M.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.P. ETC. NEW EDITION. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1866. 157.0.64. PREFACE. THE several forms of inflammation of the bronchial mucous membrane of the mucous surface of the bronchial ramifications-are amongst the most frequent, and often the most dangerous diseases, to which the inhabitants of the British Isles are liable. The great mortality by bronchitis, in different epochs of life, especially in early and advanced ages, is shown by the tables which have been compiled from the returns made to the Registrar-general. The results will indicate the importance which should be attached to the primary or idiopathic states of this disease, which are those chiefly returned, and also to those associations of it with other maladies that often render them more or less dangerous, or conduce to, even when not the actual cause of, a fatal issue. There are few diseases, so extensive, so serious, and in very young and very aged persons, so fatal, that have received so little attention from medical writers, as bron 66 chitis has received; and there are still fewer, with the exception of fevers and phthisis, which present greater modifications, especially in connection with the states of vital force, and with endemic and epidemic prevalence, than are presented by this. Bronchitis was treated by me at considerable length in the first part of my Dictionary of Practical Medicine," published in 1832. Since that time my observation of its forms, complications, and treatment, has been uninterrupted owing to its frequency in all ages, and in all classes of the community. The amount of its frequency may be inferred from the number of deaths by it, which is about half as great as that by phthisis, and seeing that it is a much more curable disease than phthisis, its much greater prevalence must be manifest. During 1859 and 1860 bronchitis was more prevalent than I ever knew it to be and much more fatal. OLD BURLINGTON STREET: March 1866. |