Compendious system of midwifery : chiefly designed to facilitate the inquiries.

  • Dewees, William P. (William Potts), 1768-1841.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Compendious system of midwifery : chiefly designed to facilitate the inquiries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    in the risk the child runs from compression ; one head suffering with inipimity a loss of six or eight lines in one of its diameters, while half this might be fatal to another. The perpendicular diameter suffers in general but little in its size, by the efforts of labour, however long continued, or strongly urged. The lon- gitudinal diameter, when the head is well situated, is very little liable to compression, or alteration ; but when it doos, it must necessarily increase the head in the direction of its transverse diameter. 61. The child's head is composed, like that of the adult, of a number of bony pieces, but are not united after the same man- ner: in the child's head the principal bones (and these, as re- gards our subject, are all we have to consider) are tied toge- ther by a firm ligamentous substance ; the lines of union are called sutures, and are three in number: 1st. The sagittal su- ture, or the line of union from the anterior portion of the occi- pital bone to the root of the nose, passing between and connect- ing the parietalia, and dividing, yet connecting the frontal bone into two equal portions. 2d. The coronal suture ; or the line which connects the anterior portions of the parietalia, and the posterior and semicircular portions of the frontal bone ; and passes from near the superior portion of one ear to that of the other. 3d. The lambdoidal suture ; or the line serving to tie together the posterior portions of the parietalia, and the anterior portion of the occipital bone. 62, From this arrangement, it will be seen, that the sagittal suture traverses the coronal suture at nearly right angles, and leaves at the points of decussation an open space or fontanelle. This is not always of the same size, owing to the more or less perfect ossification of the bones—but we always remark in it the following circumstances, which deserve to be well noticed, as they serve to distinguish it from the one next to be mention- ed—there are always four bony angles, the edges of which are almost always tipped with cartilage, easily depress-.^d and smooth; and very often, nay almost always, a space of con- siderable size, which is soft, smooth, and yielding, can be felt