The medical evidence relative to the duration of human pregnancy, given in the Gardner peerage cause, before the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords in 1825-6 : with introductory remarks and notes / by Robert Lyall.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Committee for Privileges.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical evidence relative to the duration of human pregnancy, given in the Gardner peerage cause, before the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords in 1825-6 : with introductory remarks and notes / by Robert Lyall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    42/136 (page 10)
    period of delivery, and in which the child has lived ?—According to my experience, I have no idea that such an event is possible. You should not conceive it possible that such an event can happen? —Not according to the laws of the animal economy. Have you found the laws of the animal economy general, or have you found them to vary with the constitution of the individual ?—I have, no idea that di^erence of age, or difference of management, makes any alteration, in the laws of gestation. You are to be understood, that adventitious circumstances do not vary the law of nature to protract gestation ?—Mechanical obstruc- tions may for a certain number of days, probably five or six ; but in that case it is uniformly attended with hazard, and almost certain death, either to the mother or the child, or both. You are understood to say, that five or six days constitute the range of departure from what you define to be the law of nature ?—Certainly. Are you to be understood, that this departure of five or six days is usually attended with the death of the infant, or the death of the parent. — Certainly; because the mother during that period is con- tending against mechanical opposition; in which case the womb generally bursts, and the patient is consequently destroyed*. What you call mechanical opposition is some defect or obstruction in the uterus, or in the adjacent parts?—In the bones, from mal- conformation. That you consider entirely a deviation from the law and order of nature?—Certainly; insomuch, that the effort of labour had com- menced at a proper period, and was only delayed by mechanical obstruction. Does it happen to you to have been consulted in cases where you can ascertain the day of sexual Intercourse, on which your reasoning was founded?—I can answer that question very satisfactorily to your lordships : it is not unusual to be sent to by ladies who have felt a peculiar sensation, have fainted, and have been extremely ill, so as to induce their friends to send to a professional man ; upon examining them minutely, and asking them those questions which are proper on the occasion, they will declare certain sensations, by which we know that conception had taken place, and was the cause of those feelings which they represented to us. Upon calculating from that time, I have, in such instances, invariably found I have been right in my surmises, and that labour has taken place certainly not later in every instance that I recollect of this sort, than forty weeks from that period f. * We apprehend, that few practitioners will agree with Dr. Blegborough, with respect to this bursting of the uterus, at least, as a general rule ; while many believe that physical causes are as capable, as mechanical ones, of pro- tracting labour. + Dr. Blegborough’s inquiries with respect to certain sensatio/is, which indicate the moment of conception, may have been more close than those of most practitioners. We profess to know no symptoms arising at the time of conception, w'hich may not, at times, and in certain constitutions, be equally referred to the venereal orgasm, or which can be certainly and invariably relied upon in forming an opinion.