Resume of a report on position, pneumatic pressure and mechanical appliance in uterine displacements : read before the Georgia Medical Association at Savannah, April 23d, 1875 / by Henry Fraser Campbell.

  • Campbell, Henry Fraser, 1824-1891.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Resume of a report on position, pneumatic pressure and mechanical appliance in uterine displacements : read before the Georgia Medical Association at Savannah, April 23d, 1875 / by Henry Fraser Campbell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    time at least, it will be perceived—that some pointed and clearly discriminating presentation of the now generally recognized differences in displacements, is urgently demanded, to check and to clear up the momentarily deepening confusion. The table here offered, inadequate as it may be, has cost much labor and no little anxious reflection. I cannot, however, argue it here. In the course of the foregoing remarks, introducing and ex- plaining the following synopsis, I earnestly hope there can be found not one presuming sentence or aggressive line. It will be admitted that the principles of treatment advocated in our Report have suffered for years, by one cause or another, the most unmer- ited neglect; till, at the present day, they have almost disappeared from among the teachings of gynaecology. Confusing names,* imperfect descriptions and hesitating recommendations have weakened the/Confidence in, and destroyed the value of, this ines- timable measure of treatment. In seeking to establish it now, I feel that I must not have laid at my door the charge of any half-way appeal for the attention and confidence of the profes- sion. Much would I prefer to lay myself liable to the charge of exaggerating its importance—if that were possible. It would seem something more than poetic inspiration that tells us: “Truth’s deathless voicepauses among mankind.” This voice, as will be shown hereafter, has, in this case,paused many times, in long, injurious silences—silences injurious to hu- manity. Is this most useful expedient again to disappear from among the precepts of the books and from the practice of medi- cal men ? Who can tell ? but most earnestly may we hope that it will not. In the pi-esent age, more than in any era of the past, there are potent influences which can l-escue it from oblivion.. 'When the power of inverted gravity, as can only be secured in this posture and by pneumatic pressure, comes to be generally understood, as a means of uterine replacement; when it is taught as such, in all the medical colleges; demonstrated in the hospitals; discussed fully and fairly in the societies and journals; distinctly and prominently insisted upon, as it is not anywhere now, in the standard works and text-books on gymecologv; when it shall be the rule, as most surety it will, that no pessary or other appliance of “Kuee-elbow position,” “Quadrupedal posture,” and especially the term “All-fours,” are names which fail to describe, accurately, knee-and- breast posture. They do not indicate a position of the body in which the gravity of the organs becomes inverted.