Historical highlights of long-term oxygen therapy.

The story of the development of oxygen and its role in mitigating the ravages of chronic stable hypoxemia have been fascinating. Today, over one million Americans receive home oxygen each day, usually for COPD, from one of the three available systems. The future requires less expensive, highly portable, and practical devices for use during all activities of daily living.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and '150 years of blowing'.

Spirometry is now an established and important aspect of investigation of many lung diseases. This article considers the history of spirometry, how we come to use the current indices of dynamic lung function, and the role of spirometry in the management of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

[General concepts and the history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease].

There is no general agreement on the concepts of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) yet in Japan, although there have been significant advances in the understanding of its concepts in the United States and Europe. The purpose of this presentation as the opening remark to this panel discussion is to review the concepts and history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Tables 1, 2), and also to summarize the general concepts concerning COPD in Japan at present. More than 30 years ago, a Ciba Guest symposium first proposed the main subdivisions of chronic non-specific lung disease (CNSLD), consisting of chronic bronchitis and generalized obstructive lung disease (GOLD). Many papers addressed this theme focusing on the definition and concepts of COPD for a long period after the Ciba Guest Symposium. The ATS and ACCP joint committee on pulmonary nomenclature (1975) reported that the term of COPD refers to diseases of uncertain etiology characterized by persistent slowing of airflow during forced expiration, and the committee recommended that chronic obstructive bronchitis or chronic obstructive emphysema be used, whenever possible. However, in many patients it is still difficult determine what extent the airway obstruction result from emphysema and to what extent it results from an accompanying chronic obstructive bronchitis, as Burrows described. Fishman (1980) and Burrows (1981) suggested that if the patient is thought to have a combination of chronic obstructive bronchitis and pulmonary emphysema, the case should be so diagnosed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Incidence of obstructive respiratory diseases in 1839-1850 at the Hospital for Poor Children in Pest]. / Légúti obstruktív megbetegedések elöfordulása 1839-1850 között a Pesti Szegény-Gyermek Kórházban.

According to the observations of several authors the number of obstructive respiratory diseases kept rising during the past decades, at the same time this disease was infrequent in the last century as indicated by the sporadically detectable data pertinent to adult patients. The 1st Pediatric Department of the Semmelweis University of Medicine, legal successor of the Poor-Children's Hospital of Pest is in possession of the complete case reports of 5050 out-patients of the period between 1839-1850. It can be established on the basis of these records that the diseases of the lower respiratory tract were frequent. Approximately 7 disease forms were distinguished with 323 children who suffered from bronchopathies. Of them only 13 (0.26% of the total patient material) were spasmodic bronchitis. Agoston Schopf, director of the hospital wrote at this period his book on Pediatrc. This work as well as the preparatory material of further tomes show clearly that the doctors of the hospital were well acquainted with the method of physical diagnostics and were capable to diagnose obstructive respiratory diseases. These case records are assumably the only pediatric patient material of this period not only in Hungary but also in Europe. Data confirm that obstructive respiratory diseases were infrequent at this period in children.