Report of the committee on obstetrics of the American Medical Association : read May 1851 / by D. Humphreys Storer.

  • Storer, David Humphreys, 1804-1891.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the committee on obstetrics of the American Medical Association : read May 1851 / by D. Humphreys Storer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    prolapsed funis around the child's arm, and thus returned it, con- verting it into a shoulder presentation. He then grasped the shoulder and thorax, and pushed the body of the child upwards and to the left side. He then relinquished his hold of the body and grasped the occiput, bringing it down so as to enable the head to engage. Ergot was exhibited to accelerate labour, and a still- child was expelled in about an hour after its exhibition. Retention of the Placenta. — A case of stricture of the cervix uteri, causing retention of the placenta, with the suggestion of a means of relieving it, by S. N. Harris, M. D., of Savannah, Ga., is found in the Charleston Medical Journal and Review for July, 1850. After a first labour of eighteen hours, not unnatural in its pro- gress, a stricture was detected in the uterus, which detained the placenta above it. Copious depletion, ergot, a blister to the sacrum, belladonna ointment applied to the os uteri, produced no effect, and the patient died the second day after delivery. At the post- mortem, the uterus was black and gangrenous in the body and fundus. The placenta was in a state of complete putridity, and entirely filling the cavity down to the stricture in the cervix. Dr. Harris proposes as an instrument to overcome strictures of the uterus, an apparatus, similar (if we understand it) to a com- mon form of vaginal specula. The three blades closed should be passed into the stricture, and, when expanded, dilatation of the stricture would follow. The case reported above seems to have been one of hourglass contraction. With regard to the treatment in the case, we subjoin the views of Dr. Thompson, of Albion, 111., one of your Committee on Obstetrics for the present year. These observations were received by the Chairman of your Committee after this portion of the report was arranged for presentation. He remarks: It appears to me that in such a case, the use of ergot in the early stage is based upon an erroneous pathology; in this gentleman's case in par- ticular, where venesection and belladonna were largely used to pro- duce relaxation, while at the same time the ergot was administered to induce contraction. The use of opium and tartar emetic, or chloroform after the venesection, to remove the morbid nervous excitement from which the strictured condition arose, I would con- sider a far wiser practice. But in many years' experience, I have never met with a case which could not ha, overcome by patience and