A practical compendium of midwifery : being the course of lectures on midwifery, and on the diseases of women and infants, delivered at St. Bartholomew's Hospital / by the late Robert Gooch ; prepared for publicaton by George Skinner.

  • Gooch, Robert, 1784-1830.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical compendium of midwifery : being the course of lectures on midwifery, and on the diseases of women and infants, delivered at St. Bartholomew's Hospital / by the late Robert Gooch ; prepared for publicaton by George Skinner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    advantage on the first occurrence of the symptoms : the use of the hip bath may also be extremely bene- ficial. In order to prevent the recurrence of dysmenor- rhcea, if the abdominal viscera are disordered, you must endeavour, by a treatment upon general princi- ples, to restore them to a healthy state. If plethora be the cause, you must reduce the quantity of the circulating fluid by vegetable diet, saline laxatives, and by the abstraction of blood about once a-month. If there is debility, you must strengthen the system by the metallic tonics, as steel, and sulphuric acid combined with the sulphate of zinc ; by pure air and gentle exercise;—these are the principal indications of treatment. There are some practitioners who regard this disease as one always of an inflammatory nature, and in this view their treatment is little better than empirical. It consists, they say, of chronic inflam- mation of the uterus; and knowing the power of mercurvin curing chronic inflammation of the liver, the eye, and other organs, they immediately put the system under its influence, by giving a grain of calo- mel with opium, or the extract of hemlock, every night, until the gums become a little tender. Others, assuming, also, that the disease is always inflam- matory (for the reasons that the pain is permanent, that there is a sense of fulness and tenderness in the region of the uterus, and that flakes of coagulated lymph are mixed with the discharge), prescribe in- discriminately that course of treatment which is termed antiphlogistic, consisting of bleedings, ab- stinence from animal food and fermented liquors, together with a vegetable diet, purgatives, &c. This treatment is proper only in that form of the disease which is dependent on plethora, the instances of which are by far the most rare. Dr. Dewees com- menced with the antiphlogistic plan ; by which, he said, he relieved many, but cured none. From con-