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with in exspiration, very little room was left for fresh air in inspiration; the lungs, from the emphysema, and from the diseased state of the pulmonary vein, filling almost the whole cavity of the thorax. This not only occasioned an enormous defect in the quantity of air in inspiration necessary to the purposes of life, but by the preternatural compression the motion of the blood was retarded in the lungs, more especially in their smaller vessels. This affected not only the ferous extravasation in the cist before-mentioned, but occasioned those general obstructions in the blood vessels of the lungs, which brought on the sphacelated appearance; and finally, by the increase of the complaint, was the cause of death.
This extraordinary distension of the lungs accounted for the heart's being of a more compressed figure than is usually seen.
In the present instance an asthma was occasioned by two causes, either of which has hitherto been scarce considered as conducing thereto; the one an emphysema, and the other a varicose affection of the pulmonary vein. Had the causes of this disease been as perfectly known during the life of the patient, as since his death, the case would not have admitted of a cure; as there was no method of discharging the extravasate air from the lungs; neither could any medical process alter or amend the varicose state of the pulmonary vein.
Such a state of lungs, as that just now described, in an otherwise healthy young man, could not, I was persuaded, happen but from some very powerful cause; and, upon enquiry, I was informed, that about the beginning of October, not two months before his death, from something which had greatly offended
