"STITCH IN THE SIDE."

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 68

"STITCH IN THE SIDE."

Under the name of "stitch in the side" people are accustomed popularly to speak of, at least, two very different diseases. There is nothing more common in the winter season than to find persons complaining of the ailment they designate under this #ame. They also indicate by this symptom a pain affecting one part of the chest or another. The pain is generally leferred to one side of the chest, and it js of a somewhat sharp and acute character. In some ca.^es the stitch is nnly experienced when the individual moves about or when ho takes a deep breath. In other eases the pain in question is more or less constantly piesent as a dull pain on one or bothsio.es of the chest, most commonly, however, on cne side only. Whilst constantly present, it is aggravated or increased in its intensity when a deep breath is taken. I have said that two very different troubles at least ,are commonly included under the name which heads this article. The first of these is an ordinary simple i rouble, which, as a rule, need cause us no great alarm. This ailment is that which one may properly call a stitch in the side. It really represents a form of what we may term muscular rheumatism. Its nature may, perhaps,,be readily understood if I say that lumbago is a similar affection, only differing in the i part of the tody it attacks. Lumbago, as we know, attacks the muscles of the loin?, and a very irritating and painful affection it is. The stitch in the side, on the ot.bcr hand, has its seat in the muscles between tho ribs, and therefore gives rise to the sensation of pain in the latter situation. —Something More Serious. — I bavfl said that the ordinary stitch in the side is not a dangeroug affection; it may imdoubiodly be irritating and troublesome. Th\t one cannot deny, but it does not equal in importance the second and i graver ailment which some persons mistake I for the £impler one. This second and giaver ailment is known as "pleurisy." In order to explain its nature plainly we must remember that our chest ia lined by a membrane called the "pleura." This membrane, besides lining the inside of the chest, i is reflected, or turned over, the surface of the lung, so that whei our lungs move in the chest in the -act of breathing we sec that it is the layer of the pleura covering the lung which folds over and comes in contact with the layer lining ihe chest. A little fluid is thrown out between the two layers, and serves io lubricate their movements and to render ihem easily and smoothly performed. Now, when in consequence of exposure to cold, to chill, cr it may be through some lowered condition of the body rendering a person more liable to feel the effects of dampness, cold feet, or the like, tne pleura is attacked by inflammation, we then come face to face with ihe ailment known as pleurisy. We can, therefore, well understand why inflammation of an important membrane of the cbest should naturally fall tp be considered a much graver affection than one which merely affects for the time being the muscles of the chest.