A practical treatise on midwifery, containing the results of 16,654 births, occurring in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, during a period of seven years commencing November 1826 / by Robert Collins.

  • Collins, Robert, 1801-1868.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on midwifery, containing the results of 16,654 births, occurring in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, during a period of seven years commencing November 1826 / by Robert Collins. 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.

    550/566 (page 516)
    51G siderable, not amounting to more than one in 450 for the entire time ; but for the last four years, one in 666; a fact strongly corroborative of the state- ment as to the benefit to be derived from the means of prevention above described. In order to insure the free evacuation of the bowels in the course of the first 24 hours after birth, every child born in a healthy state was in 4 or 5 hours given one grain of calomel and two of sugar, followed in eight or ten hours by castor oil in small quantities, until the bowels yielded satis- factorily. This was an invariable rule, and is a practice which I consider very desirable, nor have I ever found it injurious.' For a description of the way in which trismus attacks infants, I shall refer the reader to Doctor Clarke's excellent paper already alluded to. From dissection in such cases we have never been able to discover any pecuHar morbid appear- ance which would justify us in ofiering any ex- planation of the pathology of this disease. With respect to the treatment, I have no sug- gestion to propose, as I have never seen an instance where the child seemed even temporarily relieved by the measures adopted. Calomel has been tried in large quantity, also in small doses often re- peated, as well as extensive friction with mercurial ointment. 1 have tried frequent leeching along the spinal column, also repeated blistering over its