Volume 1

System of gynecology / by American authors ; edited by Matthew D. Mann.

Date:
1887-1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: System of gynecology / by American authors ; edited by Matthew D. Mann. 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.

    33/806 (page 29)
    Dr. D. Haves Agnew of Philivdelpliia reported a case of vaginal section performed by himself for the removal of an extra-uterine foetus. Simon's method of introducing the hand into the rectum for diag- nostic and therapeutic purposes is not as new as many are disposed to believe. In 1806, Dr. Clark, an American, recorded the fact that he introduced his hand into the bowel, and, putting his finger into the mouth of an extra-uterine fcBtus, made traction and delivered the head per rectum. The body and secundines were removed spontaneously some time after. On the next day the anus had contracted to its nat- ural size, but on the third day it, as well as the perineum, began to slough. On the ninth day the parts had commenced to heal, but the fourchette was destroyed. Although such records as are available show that American surgeons and general practitioners were quite as successful in their treatment of special diseases of the womb as were their contemporaries abroad, nearly half a century had gone by since McDowell's discovery before anything occurred on this side of the Atlantic of a nature calculated to direct special attention to American gynecology. But the native shrewdness of the American practitioner qualified him for such utilization of exist- ing knowledge as made him the peer of his Transatlantic brother in this special direction. Not until the year 1852, however—if we except Meigs's discovery of cardiac thrombosis as a cause of sudden death in childbed, and Hodge's improvements in the construction of uterine pessaries—did any of the great Kentuckian's countrymen do aught worthy of giving them marked distinction in the direction of gynecol- ogy. Hodge's pessary was a very decided improvement on instruments heretofore constructed for a similar purpose, being based on more cor- rect physiological principles than any of its predecessors. The descrip- tion of the steps which more immediately preceded the discoveiy of this pessary is best given in Dr. Hodge's own words, as quoted in a commemorative address by Dr. Penrose of Philadelphia: He had been contemplating for a long time the subject of new shapes for pes- saries, and after many experiments had found nothing satisfactory. One evening while sitting alone in the room where the meetings of the med- ical faculty of the university were held his eyes rested on an upright steel support by the fireplace designed to hold the shovel and tongs. The shovel and tongs were kept in position by a steel hook, and as he surveyed the supporting curve of this hook the longed-for lumination came: the shape, apparently so paradoxical, revealed itself in the clear light and flickering volume of the burning grate, and tlie Hodge lever pessary was the result. This was in the year 1830. To him the ])ro- fcssion is indebted for the origin and development of two ideas wliich are at this day considered among the most important facts in uterine l)athology—namely, that the condition of the uterus characterized by