Forms of Sputum
Certain other conditions of the sputum may be mentionea. Scanty sputum appears in the first stage of spasmodic asthma, at the onset of acute bronchitis, in dry catarrh, first stage of diphtheritic laryngitis, hay-fever, chronic laryngitis, and the onset of acute pleurisy. Frothy sputum is characteristically present in cases of acute bronchitis, but also in emphysema, edema of the lungs, acute lobular pneumonia. Watery and abundant frothy sputum appears in bronchorrhea, and in gangrene of the lungs the upper layers are frothy.
The sputum is viscid or sticky in acute pneumonia especially, but also in bronchopneumonia, whooping cough and in millers and bakers (from inhaling flour). A mucopurulent sputum is found particularly in chronic bronchitis, but also after the end of a severe attack of asthma, in the third stage of whooping cough and tuberculosis and in acute pneumonia after the crisis.
Xummular or coin-shaped sputum comes visually from a tuberculous cavity in the lung, but also from bronchorrhea, bronchiectasis, and cirrhosis (fibrosis) of the lung. A puru¬lent sputum usually indicates an old chronic bronchitis, but may indicate an acute bronchitis bronchopneumonia, enlarged bronchial glands, or the bursting of an abscess into a bronchial tube. Blood-streaked sputum appears especially in chronic pharyngitis or plastic bronchitis (from violent coughing), cancer of the lung, or enlarged veins in the pharynx (pharyn-geal varix), but also from other inflammations and from growths in the throat or the bronchi and from pyorrhea or bleeding gums. Light streaks of blood often have no pro¬nounced significance.
Rusty sputum appears most often in acute pneumonia, prune-juice sputum usually from cancer of the lung. Casts appear in the sputum in diphtheria and plastic bronchitis. Black specks in the sputum are due to coal-dust, smoke, dust, -etc. Fetid sputum may be due to gangrene of the lung, large cavity” in pulmonary tuberculosis, actinomycosis, bronchi¬ectasis, abscess, or syphilitic laryngitis. The microscopic ex¬amination of the sputum cannot be taken up here.