Principles of midwifery, or puerperal medicine. / By John Aitken, M.D.

  • Aitken, John, -1790
Date:
[1784]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of midwifery, or puerperal medicine. / By John Aitken, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    58/116 (page 42)
    A longitudinal indifidH of the integuments and mufcles, extending about four'inches above the fym- phyfis pubis, and to the orifice of the urethra nearly, is requifite to permit the reparation of the bones; then the cartilage is carefully cut, fo as to avoid wounding the bladder or urethra *. A good deal of attention to the treatment of the wound is unquestionably needfiik • . ui'd tmVLo r;-ljo rS-r..• o: HyftcrotQmy. Hyfterotomy, or the Cafarean operation, is afi incifion of eight or nine inches longitudinally through the con- taining parts of the abdomen, a little to one fide of the linea alba, and one of fix or feven inches in the fame direifiipn through the anterior part of the body of the uterus, to obtain a palTage to the child, and fuperfede parturition. This tremenduous and fuccefslefs operation f can on- ly be warranted, when the contraction of the pelvis is too great to allow parturition to be completed by pel- vitomy or embryotomy, or when the mother near the time of delivery dies fuddenly, with a view to fave the child. Its object, in general, is to preferve both mother - and » v1 ' ' ' J * and an half: The mother recovered well. It has, fince that period, been performed eight or nine times, with various fuccefs. The ar- guments for and againft this practice, may be confulted in the publi- cations of Drs Leak and Osburnt of London. * I have invented a knife, by which the cartilage, although fome- uliat oflitied, may be fafely divided. This removes one objection to the practice. t Sec Dr Osburn’s Treatife on Laborious Birth- In it a mafprlv view is given of the Cacfarean pradice.