On fatty degeneration of the placenta : and the influence of this disease in producing abortion, death of the fœtus, hæmorrhage, and premature labour / by Robert Barnes.

  • Barnes, Robert, 1817-1907.
Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On fatty degeneration of the placenta : and the influence of this disease in producing abortion, death of the fœtus, hæmorrhage, and premature labour / by Robert Barnes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ! or cavernous portion of the placenta being either closed up, or otherwise rendered useless, the channels of communication with the uterus necessarily disappear. Accordingly, in these portions no oblique valvular openings, no remains of arteries, could be discerned, such as usually exist, and such as were observed on the maternal surface of the more healthy por¬ tions of the diseased placentas. The consequence of this loss of homogeneity of tissue, and cessation of vascular con¬ nection with the uterus, is, that when the peristaltic move¬ ments of the uterus assume an active character, as they often do towards the seventh month of pregnancy, or even earlier, the cohesion between the placenta and the uterus is soon destroyed at those points where the fatty masses are largest and hardest. This partial disruption can hardly occur without involving some separation of the placenta not diseased, in the immediate proximity of these masses. Haemor¬ rhage results; the effusion of blood and the formation of coagula excite increased action of the uterus; further de¬ tachment follows; premature labour is imminent; and if it ensue immediately, the child may be born alive. But this event may not occur on the first appearance of flooding, as the first case I have related will show. Should it not so happen, the favorable opportunity for the child will be lost. I That amount of disease which is sufficient to cause partial If detachment of the placenta is scarcely compatible with pro- ff longed life of the foetus; and in all probability, the foetus will have been cut off from defective nutrition, before a further detachment and haemorrhage could bring about the expulsion of the contents of the uterus. I think the two cases I have related are interesting and valuable as illustrations of the two processes just described. In one case, premature labour was induced by partial de¬ tachment of the placenta and haemorrhage; in the other, the premature labour was the result of the death of the foetus. I Certainly in one, probably in both, the death of the foetus was occasioned by the gradually increasing obstruction of the placental circulation. I have thus referred to the different states of fatty / v