The London practice of midwifery: including the treatment during the puerperal state, and the principal infantile diseases : To which is added notes, plates and Denman's Aphorisms.

Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The London practice of midwifery: including the treatment during the puerperal state, and the principal infantile diseases : To which is added notes, plates and Denman's Aphorisms. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    in the latter months its increase of weight is much greater than the menses can be supposed to afford ? It appears to be a discharge intended to preserve the ute- rus in a state fitted for conception, for a girl cannot conceive till after the menses have appeared ; nor does any woman conceive after they have ceased to flow.(e) So that women only can become pregnant while the menses continue ; and they appear to be more susceptible of conception immedi- ately before and directly after each period of menstruation, than at any other part of the month. Also, in all animals there is a discharge somewhat analogous to it, which in them is called heat. This state is very nearly allied to it ; and is well understood by boys, not one of whom, when buying a doe rabbit, will pay half the price for it, if not in heat, as if she is in heat: he has nothing to do, but by pressing with his thumb to invert a portion of the vagina, and if it is red and covered thickly with blood-vessels, he knows it indi- cates heat, and is what he looks for; but if the vagina is smooth and white, any boy knows that he must keep that rabbit on bran, and other expensive provision for a month, before she will take buek. Sect* v. frrsgular Menstruatioiu Whenever the menstruation is in any way altered from its natural state, we should never neglect it, that is to say, we should apply some remedy, whether it is really neces- sary or not. If a patient thinks it worth while to say she feels pains in the end of her finger, it is proper to look at it; and if we think it will do good, to tell her she had better (c) This general rule is stated in too strong terms. Facts are abundant which prove the contrary. Cruikshanks records a case that came within his personal knowledge, of a female who was the mother of several children from whom there nev- er had been the lejist appearance of the menstrual discharge. Sir Edward Home records a similar case. See Philosophical Transactions, 1817; Neither does impregnation necessarily stop the discharge. A case has come to,ouT own knowledge in which menstruation continued regularly ft within ji short period of la- bour ; and Baudeloque says, he has known some women who had this evacuation only wjien they wei'e presrnant. Dewees avers,, that he has known taany women ^' habitually menstruate during pregnancy, and he refers to Heberden, Hossack and Francel, for evidence- on this point Dewees also mentions a case, in which the woman menstruated regularly only when shf; Was preg^nant. Daventer furnishes another example.