Obstetrics, the science and the art / by Charles D. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Charles D. (Charles Delucena), 1792-1869.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Obstetrics, the science and the art / by Charles D. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    SUPPLEMENTARY. CHAPTER XXV. SUPPLEMENTARY. The introductory or prefatory letter, which is printed in the be- ginning of this volume, states that my vision has become much dis- ordered by a neuralgia, that has not only given me a great deal of pain, but has prevented me from being as accurate as I might per- haps have otherwise been in revising the proofs of this work. I find that at page 305 I have admitted a date (Aug. 1841), which, though correct as understood of that date, is not to be taken as re- ferring to the present time, Feb. 1849. It is still true that I have not had occasion to regret one of those sudden demises after a good deli- very, in patients of my own. In one case that fell under my direction, I lost a patient in the hemorrhage that came on in a premature labor, and I was not only greatly shocked, but exceedingly surprised at the fatal result of a loss of blood, the quantity of which did not appear to me to be sufficient to bring her life into great danger. After several gushes that took place before I could get the fcet.us away, she was very faint, and as she had long labored under an extreme degree of anaemia, I was aware that she could not well bear such great losses, as another or stronger woman might readily tolerate. Soon after one of the fainting-fitSj she became uncontrollably rest- less and delirious, striving to get out of bed, and to sit up in it, the pulse uncountably frequent, and very small, the face being mean- while of a deathlike paleness. It required about half an hour of such a state of things to extinguish the last spark of existence, which termination occurred after heavy sighs, or efTorts to respire. I wish the Student to reflect for a moment upon the above state- ment, and I ask him what explanation he can make or what rationale of the phenomena he can give better than the following hypothetical one, viz: The patient was anajmical. She flooded in the premature labor.