Volume 1

On the induction of premature labour in cases of pregnancy, complicated with albuminous urine, dropsy, and amaurosis / by Robert Lee.

  • Lee, Robert, 1793-1877.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the induction of premature labour in cases of pregnancy, complicated with albuminous urine, dropsy, and amaurosis / by Robert Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    treatment for her. I could come to you this afternoon between 2 and half past, or could receive you here up to half past 2, if more convenient. “ Yours verv trulv, “ W. Bowman.” Soon after the receipt of this note I went to Mr. Bow¬ man’s house, where the patient and her mother were waiting. Mr. Bowman then informed me that he had examined the right eye with the ophthalmoscope, and ascertained that there was a destructive disease going on in the coats of the eye. From the condition of the retina and choroid coat Mr. Bowman was led to suspect that there was some disease of the kidneys, and on examining the urine he had discovered that it was loaded with albumen. A small quantity was put into a glass tube, and heated with a spirit lamp, and it was at once seen that the patient was suffering from albuminuria in a high degree. There was no swelling of the face or extremities. There was headache and quick¬ ness of the pulse, and the patient being in the sixth month of pregnancy, I inferred that she was threatened with convul¬ sions. A leech was applied to each temple, a grain of calomel given at bedtime, and an aperient ordered to be taken in the morning. The symptoms became aggravated during the three following days. I then proposed that pre¬ mature labour should be induced, believing that the affection of the eyes and kidneys arose from the pregnancy, and that they would not yield to any treatment until the foetus and its appendages had been removed from the uterus. Some years before I had seen a patient in Holland Ward, St. George’s Hospital, under the care of Dr. Bence Jones, with albuminuria and dropsy, in whom all the symptoms speedily disappeared after the spontaneous expulsion of a dead foetus of seven months. Before having recourse to the inductionof premature labour, it was considered proper that Dr. Robert Ferguson should see the patient, and sanction the proceeding. On the 27th March, Mr. Bowman, Dr. Ferguson, and I, met in consul-