On cephalotripsy / by G.H. Kidd.

  • Kidd, G. H.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On cephalotripsy / by G.H. Kidd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    patient’s second pregnancy. Labour now set in at the end of the eighth month, the previous delivery having been effected, by the crotchet, with extreme difficulty. It was found that a foot pre¬ sented; and as the woman had already given birth to a child, it was determined to attempt delivery per vias naturales, though the outlet and cavity of the pelvis were below the average dimensions, and there was little, if any, more space than an inch and three-quarters in any part of the antero-posterior diameter of the brim. The feet were drawn down ; then the breech and arms, and traction made on the body, and the perforator introduced, but with little effect, in reducing the size of the head. Simpson’s cephalotribe was now applied, and the head compressed, and while extractive efforts were made with it, an assistant pulled firmly and steadily on the body. After the most persevering endeavours for about twenty minutes, the body unfortunately separated from the head, and at the same time the cephalotribe slipped. The patient now became alarmingly collapsed, but rallied in about ten minutes, when an attempt to introduce the hand into the uterus failed, and the Cesarean section was performed. The patient died thirty-one hours after the operation. The close resemblance in many particulars between this case and the one I have detailed is very remarkable, and as I have said the knowledge of it might have led us to perform the Cesarean section at once had the other circumstances of our case permitted; especially as Scanzoni who is a warm advocate of the cephalotribe, says the use of it should not be attempted even with an immature fetus if the shortest diameter of the pelvis be less than Om 055 (2*16 English inches). But Pajot’s having succeeded by the system of repeated crushings without tractions in safely delivering a woman whose pelvis did not measure more than five centimetres, or P9 English inches, and the experience I have now acquired of this system of repeated crushings without traction, both in the case I have detailed, and in experiments on the heads of dead children convince me that cephalotripsy may legitimately be tried in all suitable cases in which the instrument can be passed through the brim of the pelvis. , In the next case, the narrowing of the pelvis was not to the same extent as the antero-posterior diameter was nearly three inches, but the child was full grown, and had not undergone putrefaction, so that the difficulty of delivery was still very great. A woman was admitted into the hospital on Friday, 19th April,