Researches on the pathology and treatment of some of the most important diseases of women / Robert Lee.

  • Lee, Robert, 1793-1877.
Date:
1833
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on the pathology and treatment of some of the most important diseases of women / Robert Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    In all our dissections the peritoneum appeared every where universally vascular and inflamed. Next to the omentum, the broad ligaments of the uterus, the ccecum and sigmoid flexure of the colon, seemed to suffer most by inflammation. We always meet with more or less of a turbid yellow, and sometimes foetid fluid, floating among the intestines; coagulated purulent-like masses, adhesive inflammation, glueing the intestines to each other, &c. In no instance did the appearance of inflammation seem to penetrate deeper than the peritoneal coat on any of the viscera of abdomen and pelvis.* Dr. John Clarke admits that in most cases of true puerpe- ral fever, there has been some degree of inflammation in the cavity of the abdomen, and that the uterus and ovaria sometimes partake of the inflammation. In two cases he found an appearance of pus in the veins of the uterus. The brain was in a natural state. In one instance only was there an appearance of disease in the chest. The effusion of sero-purulent fluid into the sac of the peritoneum was so dis- proportioned, however, to the degree of inflammation, that he supposed it arose from another cause. Pathologists are now agreed, that these copious effusions into the peritoneal sac, are invariably the result of acute inflammation, and not of any peculiar disposition of the vessels of the part, as Dr. Clarke had supposed.+ The works of Dr. Armstrong and Mr. Hey contain the histories of two epidemics, in which the leading symptoms were those which are present in cases of abdominal inflam- mation, and the employment of copious blood-letting, cathartics, and other antiphlogistic remedies was attended with decided advantage. The actual condition of the ute- * Medical Commentaries, 1790, p. 299. t Essays on the Epidemic Disease of Lying-in Women, by J. Clarke, M.D.