Lithopedion : report of a case, with a review of the literature / by William Seaman Bainbridge.

  • Bainbridge, William Seaman, 1870-1947.
Date:
1912
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Lithopedion : report of a case, with a review of the literature / by William Seaman Bainbridge. 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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    was shelled out of the left broad ligament, without any bleeding, and the patient made a good recovery from the operation, but died a few weeks later from pleurisy. There was a history of pregnancy and missed labor when the patient was thirty-five years old. The specimen was globular in shape, surrounded by a dense hard covering about as thick as thin cardboard. After sawing through the outer envelope the fetus was seen firmly bent upon itself, with the arms and legs like flattened bands. The calcified membrane was firmly adherent to the head and spine and back of the legs and arms. The abdbmen, chest, side of head, arms, legs, and fingers, even the fingernails, were in perfect preservation. 22. Elbrecht, in discussing the above case, reported a case of tubal abortion, with complete detachment of the fetus from the placenta at six months, resulting in omental attachment and beginning lithopedion. 23. Price, in discussing the same paper, recalled a large specimen of this nature, with a foot protruding from the sac. 24. Morehouse and Griswold {Jour. Am. Med. January 19, 1907, page 222): Lithopedion, carried twenty-six years or more, patient sixty-two years of age. Removed by laparotomy. The specimen was a complete skeleton of a fetus of five or six months, flexed on itself, complete in every respect, even to the preservation of the bones of the hands. The specimen is now in the museum of Rush Medical College. 25. Weibel {Centrlbl. f. Gyn.} No. 37, 1908, page 1227): Litho- pedion after ovarian pregnancy; obtained from a woman fifty- seven years of age. History of extra-uterine pregnancy twenty- seven years before. Laparotomy, on account of hard, immov- able tumor, size of man’s head, in left half of abdomen. The specimen consisted of the placenta, the very well preserved nine months’ fetus, and the closely adherent membranes. Deposits of lime were demonstrated in individual organs (liver, kidney, lungs, muscle and skin), being absent from others. 26. Smith, J. W. {Jour. Obst. and Gyn. of the British Empire, March, 1908, page 180): Lithopedion, retained in abdominal cavity for fifteen years and a half, after rupture of a tubal preg- nancy at the end of the sixth week. Carrier forty years of age. The presence of the lithopedion resulted in acute intestinal obstruction. The patient died some hours after removal of the generally adherent lithopedion and relief of the intestinal ob- struction. The specimen weighed one pound and five ounces, the whole being hard and calcified. The placenta, though cal- careous, was not very hard, and at more than one point there was a tendency to crumbling. The survival and calcification of the placenta appears to be of rare occurrence, as in many of the recorded cases of lithopedion no mention is made of traces of the placenta having been found. 27. Staniszewski {Centrlbl. f. Gyn., No. 48, 1909, page 1646): Lithopedion, removed by operation, demonstrated before the