On puerperal convulsions / by Thomas More Madden.

Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On puerperal convulsions / by Thomas More Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ON PUERPERAL CONVULSIOlSrS. [Read before the Dublin Obstetrical Society—May 9th, 1874.] There are few obstetric questions of greater interest than the etiology, prevention, and treatment of puerperal convulsions. Some advance has been recently made in the prophylaxis and management of this disease, but its causes remain sub judice, and little can yet be added with certainty to what Hippocrates wrote:—'S.waafios ^ vtto TrXrjpuxrios 7/ Kevwcnos.:” though from his time to the present almost innumerable theories had been applied to this subject. I shall now lay before the Society the history of a few of the cases of puerperal convulsions that have come under my notice in hospital and private practice, together with some general observations on the disease, and a reference to the principal views that have prevailed at different times as to their nature and treatment. Several of the opinions thus referred to, though quoted from writers now seldom consulted, are never- theless of interest. For, in investigating subjects like the present, which have long engaged and baffled inquiry, it is surely not unworthy of a scientific society, however practical and devoted to progress, occasionally to look back to what has been done by those who have been pioneers in those obscure paths of inquiry which we would ourselves explore. Convulsions are, with the exception of rupture and inversion of the uterus, the most dangerous as well as the least frequent of the compli- cations of labour. The relative frequency as well as the danger of this disease is shown by the following table, compiled from Reports of the Masters of the Dublin Lying-in Hospital.