A lithopedion thirty-five years old / reported by James N. Vander Veer and Charles P. McCabe.

  • Vander Veer, James N., 1877-1937.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A lithopedion thirty-five years old / reported by James N. Vander Veer and Charles P. McCabe. 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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    Reprinted from Albany Muni cal Annals, April, 1910 i A Lithopedion Thirty-five Years Old Reported by James N. Vander Veer, M~ D. and Charles P. McCabe, M. D. Mrs. M. G. R., aged sixty-five years, died on September 30, 1909, following an organic heart lesion, and had given a his- tory as follows: She became pregnant in August, 1874, and the day of her expected confinement was May or June of 1875. Within the week that her expected confinement was to take place she suffered from labor pains in a perfectly normal manner, and summoned her family physician at that time. He came and attended her the whole night through while the pains con- tinued. But there was no presentation of any part, and so far as could be learned from the patient, the physician could not make out that the cervix was enlarging as it should. The following morning the pains ceased and since that time she had not suffered in any appreciable manner, until her later years, from what she supposed to be a false labor. No child was born. The patient had had one living child three years prior to this pregnancy and three years after this pregnancy she became pregnant once more and, within the normal period, was delivered of a living child, a girl now thirty-two years old. In the interim, to 1909, she suffered no inconvenience what- soever, except occasionally a bunch would present itself in her abdomen, which could be moved from side to side, but which, by choice, seemed to lie on the left side. In June, 1907, she had an attack of grippe and pneumonia while in a nearby town, at which time Dr. McCabe attended her, and since that time she suffered from an organic heart lesion due to the grippe, followed by nephritis, and eventually an anasarca and an ascites developed, requiring tapping of her abdomen in the summer of 1908. Shortly after this her legs became markedly edematous, with large ulcerations of the calves of both legs, and general debility rapidly came on. For the last eight months prior to September, 1909, she had been unable to lie in bed, by reason of the kidney complica- tion, and was compelled to sit in a chair during the entire twenty-four hours in order to obtain sufficient breath.