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Thoracic aorta with aneurysm

The Charles Bell catalogue entry states: ‘An aneurism of the descending Thoracic Aorta. The Patient lay long in the Middlesex Hospital being kept very low, and occasionally bled. His sufferings were by no means so acute, as we would imagine must necessarily result from such extensive disease, and not nearly so much as we find in Patients who having affections of the Heart, afford no morbid appearance on dissection. The tumour has burst through to the back part, where it formed a very large Tumour during life, notwithstanding the distance of this posterior sac, from the Heart. The pulsation of the Tumour was at all times very distinct: though we learn that such Anuerisms have been mistaken for chronic abcess. He died exhausted from weakness.’ Bell Collection BC.xii.2.M.57. GC 11006.