Woman, her diseases and remedies : a series of letters to his class / by Charles D. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Charles D. (Charles Delucena), 1792-1869.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Woman, her diseases and remedies : a series of letters to his class / by Charles D. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ner as occurs in the eyelid, which is not rarely infiltrated from blows upon the forehead. In case of any purely topical infiltration, it is to ■be expected that the water will immediately begin to flow off into the adjacent meshes, and, therefore, it will not require any medical pre- scription, beyond, perhaps, some cooling lotion, such as a dilute mixture of Goulard's extract with water; or a weak solution of muriate of ammonia in vinegar and water, with the addition of tincture of opium. Cloths wrung out of such a solution should be applied to the swellings. Half an ounce of the salt, a gill of vinegar, and a table- spoonful of laudanum, mixed with a tumbler and a half of water, is the mixture that I commonly employ in similar cases. I have never found any inconvenience to result from fine punctures of the labia, as above recommended; and I believe that it is best to make thern, whenever the inducement is clearly perceived. I made such punctures in a bad case under my care a few years ago, during the process of distending the genitalia externa by the child's head, for T found that the packing of the cellular structure of the labium with water was so very firm as to prevent the yielding of the parts. Very soon after I had made the openings, the water within began to exude; whereupon, I delivered the woman with the forceps, without injuring her at all. Now, you may very readily understand, that where the oedema of the lower limbs has gone to the greatest extent, and the cause of the production of it still continues in force, not the labia pudendorum only, but the belly and chest, and even the upper extremities and head may have their cellular membrane filled; a sample by no means difficult to find in practice. I am sure I have seen a woman increased in weight at least thirty pounds, or more, by this infiltration alone. You will also understand, that such a great oedema gravidarum must, to a certain degree, interfere with the health, and that the labor is likely, on that account alone, to be a bad one; but a bad labor Avill sometimes require you to resort to the aid of the forceps, while the head is still pretty high up in the pelvis. When this is the case, you cannot adjust the forceps to the child's head without carrying the lock very far backwards, and so thrusting the anterior edge of the peri- neum far towards the anus and the coccyx. This you will be in- capable of doing if the perineum be much infiltrated, thickened, and hardened, so as to resemble rather a piece of deal than the ductile material of which it naturally consists. The perineum will not go backwards for all your efforts or skill. I have been baffled in all attempts to get the blades of the forceps adjusted by this very resist- ance of the infiltrated perineum ; but, when I have let the infiltration