Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/154

 130

stethoscope was applied there, the sound of his voice was said to alter the character of the pulsation. His situation was deeply lamented, and the prognosis so unfavourable, that intimation of his hopeless state was communicated to him without reserve. He again visited Dublin, a.nd availed himself of the opinions of three, if not more, able practical physicians and surgeons in that celebrated metropolis, who all agreed in the opinion that he had an organic disease of the heart, though they differed as to its being hypertrophy. One only, however, prescribed for him, whose medicines he had not resolution to take, being greatly depressed by the discrepancy of their opinions, and which anxiety was much heightened by reflecting on the loss which a wife and six children would sustain by his death. On his return to Liverpool, he applied to one of our dispensaries, and was, apparently, judiciously treated by one of the physicians of that institution, although the irritation and discharge occasioned by two setons, one on the swelling and another on the side, rendered him not only weak, but unable even to walk. He, therefore, discontinued all medical means, more especially as he was led to believe that he could not survive many months. It was after all these conflicting opinions that Mr. Callan requested I would see him, who was well acquainted with the whole history of his complaint; and I found, in addition to the palpitation, swelling of the left side of the thorax, and beating of the left side of his head; he had, also, a train of dyspeptic symptoms, with great nervous irritability, no doubt increased, if not occasioned, by the unceasing anxiety and alarm he was under,