A manual of clinical medicine and physical diagnosis / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner.

  • Tanner, Thomas Hawkes, 1824-1871.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of clinical medicine and physical diagnosis / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    The following articles are those which will be mostly required:—A spirit lamp; a cylindrical precipitating glass; an urinometer, for taking the specific gravity ; blue litmus paper, for testing acidity; slightly reddened litmus and turmeric paper, for testing alkalinity, the for- mer being the most delicate; watch-glasses and evapora- ting dishes ; half a dozen test tubes ; a thermometer, with an exposed bulb; a small retort stand; a blow-pipe; platinum foil; a glass funnel and filtering paper; glass rods; one or two pipette forceps for extracting hairs, glass brushes for applying acids may be conveniently kept; and bottles for the following reagents :—nitric acid, sulphuric acid, acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, liquor po- tasses, liquor ammonias, a saturated solution of nitrate of barytes, solution of nitrate of silver (one drachm of the crystallized nitrate to the ounce of distilled water), solution of oxalate of ammonia, iodine solution, alcohol, and recti- fied ether. Should the practitioner prefer a more portable case, he can purchase a case fitted up with every conve- nience at any of the instrument makers. With these agents he will be enabled to make a clinical examination of the urine, blood, sputa, &c., as far as it is necessary to do so in the practice of medicine for the purposes of diagnosis. For the mode of making a chemical analysis of the blood and secretions, see Chapter XIV. Details of Examination.—Objects may be viewed by transmitted light, and then must be sufficiently thin, or by reflected light when it is desired to examine the condi- tion oftheir surface more particularly, and then opacity and thickness are of no consequence. For viewing with trans- mitted light, a thin section should be made, then placed in some medium of about the same density as that which surrounds the tissue to be examined. Dr. Beale suggests albumen and water. Highly refracting structures are seen to advantage by immersion in glycerine and water. To render transparent tissues opaque, alcohol and water may be used, as also chromic acid, and sometimes glycerine. The tissues may be also coloured by a little prussian blue, or a weak solution of carmine in ammonia. Tissues may be rendered transparent by weak glycerine and water, by the action of acetic acid which dissolves earthy matter and clears up granular matter, as in the definition of the pus cor- puscle, and by the operation upon them of alkalies. Ether dissolves fatty matter. Liquor potassai is used to opaque albuminous substances, in strong solution to dissolve, and