General Considerations

Under this general term are included the disorders affecting the bronchial tubes, the lung tissue itself, and its investing membrane - the pleura. Although the diseases are considered separately and receive special names, they are frequently found to exist together. Nevertheless, it is common to find one particular structure so prominently affected as to warrant the use of a name identifying the disease. A compromise in nomenclature, where two principal structures are at the same time affected, may be found in such terms as bronchopneumonia, pleuro-pneumonia, etc, at one time in exclusive use by the professions, but now generally understood by the public, who are familiarized in great part with medical terms through reading in the lay press accounts of the illnesses of eminent persons.