Dr. Conquest's outlines of midwifery : intended as a text-book for students, and a book of reference for junior practitioners.

  • Conquest, Dr.
Date:
1854
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Conquest's outlines of midwifery : intended as a text-book for students, and a book of reference for junior practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/370 (page 37)
    The great clanger in ovariotomy is from ha^raor- rhage. The risk from peritonitis has been exag- gerated. Except during the puerperal state, and other inflammatory conditions of the body, Avhen the blood is loaded with fibrin, wounds and injuries of the peritoneum are not so fatal as commonly sup- posed. Sir G. Balingall, in his Outlines of Military Surgery. 2nd edit., refers to cases of penetrating wounds of the abdomen, in which the intestines loere implicated ; and yet several of these cases recovered, although the remedial measures consisted of little more than abstinence and rest. He also (p. 310.) alludes to cases of wounds of the bladder, implicating the pe- ritoneum, and which were also in a fair way of recovery. It must not, however, be understood that I con- sider the claims of ovariotomy, to be ranked as one of the capital operations of surgery, as yet firmly established. I merely recommend an impartial mquiry into its merits, and a careful discrimination between those cases wliich are, and those which are not, suitable for the operation. When the growth ' of the cyst is slow and the health tolerably good, ■the operation should not be undertaken. I have ' ; a patient, who has been labouring under ovarian ■ disease for many years, and, when I last saw her, , 1 before her death, when an uncontrollable diarrhoea supervened, and ^ -was the immediate cause of her dissolution. A post-mortem cxami- nation did not reveal any appearances which could bo attributed ^ to the operation. There were no traces of peritonitis ; neither were ■ there any signs of hcemorrhagic effusion. D 3