On the methods of arresting haemorrhage per vaginam / by Edward Blake.

  • Blake, Edward T. (Edward Thomas), 1842-1905.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the methods of arresting haemorrhage per vaginam / by Edward Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    patient can tolerate. Calendula or Hamamelis may with advantage be added to the water. The use of powerful styptics I have entirely abandoned under these circumstances. The employment of hot instead of cold water to arrest hfemorrhage has so revolutionised modern practice, and the question of its originator has given rise to so much controversy, that the following letter, which I recently received from Dr. Lombe Atthill, of the Rotunda, may not be without interest : “Rotunda Hospital, Dublin; “Dec. 8th, 1880. The use of hot water in post-partum hgemorrhage was first practised by Dr. Whitwell, of S. Francisco, and was introduced here by me two years ago. You will find my paper in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science for, I think, January, 1878, under the heading “ Obstetrical Transactions,” or in the sixth volume of the Obstetrical Journal, p. 126. There is also a paper of mine in the Lancet. I forget the date; it was early in 1878. “ I am, yours, “ Lombe Atthill.” A great deal of nonsense has been written about injected fluids passing along the Fallopian tubes into the peritoneal cavity. If it be difficult to pass even a surgical probe into the Fallopians when the tissues are relaxed by death, how much more difficult for liquids to pass during the tonic condition of life ! It may be said that liquids might be drawn into these tubes by capillary action. Such objectors seem to forget that the very same capillary attraction which would tend to draw a liquid into a tube would also tend to keep it there when drawn. I do not deny the possi- bility of blood being forced along the Fallopians by a powerfully contracting uterus, especially when acute flexion or atresia cervicis exists, but I do deny that such a thing frequently takes place. Hsematocele might possibly occur, but against it is the fact that most hasmatoceles are subperitoneal, at least in early stage.