A case of Caesarean operation : accompanied with pathological remarks on puerperal metritis, or acute inflammation of the uterus / by James Milman Coley.

  • Coley James Milman.
Date:
[1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of Caesarean operation : accompanied with pathological remarks on puerperal metritis, or acute inflammation of the uterus / by James Milman Coley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    more offensive, and I had no doubt the foetns was dead. The pulse was more feeble and fre- quent, beating 126, and being semetimes scarce- ly perceptible. The uterine pains were less frequent. Finding she had been kept on very low diet & was now too much reduced injstrength to undergo the operation of embryotomy, to which I had alluded in the morning, 1 di- rected her to take nourishing diet, and to be kept quiet, hoping I might find her somewhat refreshed in the morning. 22nd. So great was her exhaustion this morning, after another sleepless night, that the least movement in the bed produced a corres- ponding fluttering of the pulse, rapid respira- tiou, aud sudden collapse of the vessels of the skin. I was aware that these symptoms together with immediate auscultation indicated hydro- pericardium or the presence of water in the bag of the heart; and that the contracted state of the pelvis from the very commencement of labour, admitted only of two modes of delivery, namely. Embryotomy, or the Caesarean operaUon. To have commenced under these circumstances the tedious, painful, and dangerous operation of perforating and extracting piece by piece a full grown foetus, through so distorted a pelvis, would now have been unfeeling and barbarous ; as the patient was utterly incapable of bearing the pain, and would have died before the ope- ration could have been completed. I there-
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