Empyema in children

• Main Author: Hunter, Andrew Edwin
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1905
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.735129

Empyema or pus in the pleural cavity is a disease which always has taxed, and probably more or less aiways will tax the diagnostic powers of the clinician to their utmost. The condition was well known to the ancients, and Hippocrates the Father of all Medicine, has given it considerable attention and has laid down many maxims accordingly. Though its recognition dates from such an early period, and one has only to look at the magnitude of the literature on the subject to realize how enormous the amount of observation, care and attention that has been bestowed upon empyema; yet despite it all, one is constantly being confronted with a case where it is impossible without actually exploring the pleural cavity itself, to make a conclusive and final diagnosis. This holds more perhaps in children than in adults, since the physical signs in the thorax of the child are acknowledged to be more difficult of interpretation than in that of the adult. The observations in this paper have been conducted upon children up to fourteen years of age, the usual limit of admission to a Children's Hospital. I have chosen children for investigation, since the results of early diagnosis and adequate treatment in the child are always much more satisfactory and encouraging than in the adult.