ON THE MOVEMENTS OF RESPIRATION IN DISEASE, AND ON THE USE OF A CHEST-MEASURER. BY FRANCIS SIBSON, RESIDENT-SURGEON TO THE GENERAL HOSPITAL, NEAR NOTTINGHAM. COMMUNICATED BY DR. HODGKIN. Received May 9th-Read May 23rd, 1848. THE incomparable Laennec says, "L'inspection du thorax pendant la respiration est très peu utile.” Well did Dr. Forbes remark, in translating this passage, that Laennec underrated the inspection of the motions of the chest as a means of diagnosis. Notwithstanding this opinion of Laennec, almost all the principal subsequent authors on the diseases of the chest, such as, among others, Andral, Collin, Dr. Forbes, Dr. C. J. B. Williams, Sir James Clark, Dr. Stokes, M. Voilliez, M. Fournet, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Walshe, have successively investigated the respiratory movements in chest disease. There has been indeed, of late years, a growing sense of the importance of observing the motions of respiration in forming a diagnosis. Impressed with the importance of the inquiry, and desirous of ascertaining the true value of the phenomena in diagnosis, I have for some years investigated the movements of respiration in health and disease. Many of my observations on this subject were published in 1844 in the Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, in a paper on "The Changes in the Situation of the Internal Organs;" and in |