Facts and observations relative to the fever commonly called puerperal.

  • Armstrong, John, 1784-1829.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts and observations relative to the fever commonly called puerperal. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    If the puerperal fever were now treated in the same vague way as in the above inflammatory modifications, it would be equally fatal in our experience as it was in that of Dr. William Hunter; and as he was an individual of transcen- dent talent, it is gratifying to reflect, that the advancing state of medical science has enabled us to succeed in a point where even his genius failed. In conversing upon the subject of the puerperal fever, I have occasionally known practitioners to assert in general terms the utter inefficiency of bleeding. But the moment that I began to enter into particulars it was discovera- ble, that with them bleeding was a term to which they attached a very different meaning from myself; and that, like Dr. Leake, they talked of having bled copiously when a few ounces of blood only were drawn, without any strict re- gard to the stage of the disease, or to the effect produced. It is to be regretted, in the records which we possess on febrile diseases, that authors have seldom stated with minuteness how much and how often blood had been drawn, nor given an account of all the symptoms present at each operation; for if we had been possessed of this information, we should have been enabled to