Facts and observations relative to the fever commonly called puerperal / by John Armstrong.

  • Armstrong, John, 1784-1829.
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts and observations relative to the fever commonly called puerperal / by John Armstrong. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    when I admonish accoucheurs in general not to let the pressure of business induce them to extract the placenta too soon; nothing but an eruption of blood, threatening the very life of the patient, can justify its hasty and forcible separation. On the other hand, the after-birth, for obvious reasons, must not be allowed to remain too long. Dr. Hamilton, the experienced and judicious professor of midwifery in the university of Edinburgh, declares, in his lec- tures, that it cannot be left, with perfect safety, longer than an hour in the uterus, after the expul- sion of the child.* If cold has been applied to any great extent in uterine floodings, and a considerable redaction of the heart and arteries, with some degree of fever, is likely to succeed their suppression, the prac- titioner must be upon his guard, and not permit his patient to take strong drinks and food by way of re- * As the life of tbe patient is never exempt from danger till the after- birth be extracted, no practitioner ought on any pretence to leave a woman even for a short space of time till that circumstance have taken place.— Hamilton's Treatise on the Management of Female Complaints, fifth edition, p. 188.