Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart

Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart, by John Collins Warren, is presented as cases with dissections and some remarks intended to point out the distinctive symptoms of these diseases. The work is described as read before the counsellors of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Plate I shows the appearance of the valves of the aorta in Case 3d, with the two valves thickened and bony projections, one of which extends across the cavity of the valve.

One case describes a person who began to complain of palpitations of the heart, experienced a difficulty of respiring as he ascended the stairs, and had an unquiet sleep attended with very profuse perspiration. The text says the functions of the brain suffer much disturbance, with melancholy and a disposition for reverie attending the early stages of the complaint, and that the termination of the disease is attended with slight delirium, sometimes with phrenzy, and with hemiplegia. A dissection records that the pleura in both cavities of the thorax was studded with small, white, and apparently homogeneous tubercles, and that the right cavity of the pleura was entirely filled with water, of which at least three quarts were removed.