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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    of the apparent oppression ; but in the disease in question a state the very reverse of inflamma- tion ushers'in and accompanies the disease, for so far from pyrexia being present, there is a de- ficiency of the animal heat. In this peculiar disease of child-bed, nothing can be done for the patient unless she be very early seen, and even then a cautious prognosis must be given, as the danger is imminent. An excellent practitioner once confessed to me, that he had never saved a patient in this complaint, and another acknowledged, that the mortality had been great, though he had used bleeding, purg- ing, and all the means usually resorted to for relief in acute diseases. From these facts it would seem that the congestive forms of fever in child-bed were more perilous, than those which occur un- der ordinary states of the system; and this may probably depend in some measure upon the ex- haustion, which is sometimes super-added by the previous throes of parturition. The treatment of this disease must be regulated in the first instance by the constitutional powers of the patient, by the state of the animal heat, and by the apparent degree of venous pressure exist- ing in some of the viscera. When a naturally