The bearings of chronic disease of the heart upon pregnancy, parturition, and childbed : with papers on puerperal pluero-pneumonia and eclampsia / by Angus MacDonald.

  • Macdonald Angus, 1836-1886.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The bearings of chronic disease of the heart upon pregnancy, parturition, and childbed : with papers on puerperal pluero-pneumonia and eclampsia / by Angus MacDonald. 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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    marriage, and is still alive and well. This child, however, was suckled by the patient during the whole period of her second pregnancy, and even up to the commencement of her labour. The second confinement took place on the 26th day of February 1875, at 3.50 A.M., when she was delivered by Mr. Bentley of a male child, after an easy labour of a few hours' duration. All the stages were natural and normal. The placenta was removed about fifteen minutes after the birth of the child, with little or no effort on the part of the attend- ant. The labour would appear to have supervened about three weeks or so before the completion of the full term of utero-gestation. The patient had continued to progress favourably until about 2 A.M. on the morning of the 9th of March, when she was observed sitting up in bed, bent forwards. It is to be noticed that on the previous day she had been in her usual health. When she sat up at this time she complained of no pain, and in fact never spoke, but appeared very restless, rubbing her legs and clutching at her hair. On Mr. Bentley's arrival at 9 A.M., the patient was com- pletely unconscious, and there were present strong tetanic spasms, similar to those described below, only more violent in character. On my arrival I made the following note of her condition : —Face pale ; general appearance anaemic ; skin soft and dry, but feels natural in temperature; pupils somewhat con- tracted, and almost completely insensible to light; con- junctivae insensible to touch; eyes glazed-looking. Patient completely unconscious both during and between the attacks of spasm. Urine expelled involuntarily. Spasms of a purely tetanic character occur at intervals of about a minute. During these seizures the heels and the occiput are the only parts of the patient's body which touch the bed, the contractions being thus mainly opisthotonic.
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