Selected monographs.

  • New Sydenham Society.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    gangrene, when thousands of women take every day a larger quantity with impunity. Nevertheless for those who are difficult to convince, it is necessary to remove this difficulty. There exist, it is true, a few rare examples of gangrene developed after the administration of ergot in obstetrical doses. Such is M. Robert's* case, in which 12 grains (0'6 centigrammes) had been prescribed and swallowed ; whereupon this physician treats as fools the practitioners who should dare again to employ this medicament. But in this case, according to his statement, the gangrene appeared some little time after delivery. The patient succumbed one month after accouchement; the progress of events was therefore rapid. Are our Cases XII. and XV. then the only ones in which the tonic action of ergot of rye was manifested at several months' interval ? After careful search I have found a third, in which this remote action of ergot was assumed. This case is sufficiently curious to be reorded.i* February 1, 1854.—Catharine C, aged 22 years, domestic servant, presented herself at M. Maisonneuve's consultation, complaining that she had not been able to use her fingers for more than a month. The two hands presented an aspect suffi- ciently striking and characteristic to attract attention, and make one think of some serious disease. The age of the patient, the absence of all traumatic cause, and the characteristic aspect of the affection, left no doubt as to the existence of a gangrenous ergotism. Tbe patient moreover confirmed immediately the diagnosis by announcing that she had always lived on rye bread, that this was regarded as damaged when four months ago she had left the mountains of Auvergne in order to come and live in Paris. Up to then nothing in her health had made her aware of the hurtful influence to which she was subjected. Two months after her arrival in Paris she became very sensible to cold, and her hands and her feet became swollen and covered with numerous bulla?. The patient believed that she was suffering from chil- blains, and although she had never been subject to them pre- viously she was not disquieted by them. But this irritation, instead of subsiding, became aggravated from day to day, and ended by rendering all work impossible, and forcing her to enter the hospital. The two hands presented changes not to the same degree but * Gazette mklicule, 1832, p. 3IP. f Ga-elte ties hopitmix, 1851, p. 69.