Jansy - I agree that we can take "nebulae dilating" simply to refer to some "expansion of shadows and haze in the lungs", as you say. However, I believe "nebulae" calls to mind the appearance of nebulae as seen by astronomers, and if you wish to compare that to the appearance of disease on an X-ray, it is possible in medicine to link that to a specific disease. I don't claim, of course, that's it is desirable in literature!

 

As to whether we need to medicalise poetry - I'm not sure we *need* to do anything to poetry bar read it, but there's been a fair amount of medical interest in parts of PF recently, and given that we *are* medicalising it to that extent, why not go the whole way and medicalise it as thoroughly as possible?

 

Nick.