Preservative plan; or, hints for the preservation of persons exposed to those accidents which suddenly suspend or extingui[s]h vital action, and by which many valuable lives are prematurely lost to the community / by A. Fothergill.

  • Fothergill, A. (Anthony), 1732?-1813.
Date:
1798
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preservative plan; or, hints for the preservation of persons exposed to those accidents which suddenly suspend or extingui[s]h vital action, and by which many valuable lives are prematurely lost to the community / by A. Fothergill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    From Com'prejfion or 'premature Separation of the Umbilical Cord. If, during delivery, the umbilical cord be compreffed, and the neceffary intercourfe between the infant and its placenta be intercepted, though but for a fhort fpace of time, the circulation ceafes, and, the blood being deprived of a frefh fupply of oxygen, the child’s countenance affumes a livid alpedt, as in drowning or fufFocation, and it is born apparently dead. Or if, through the ignorance or precipitancy of the midwife, the cord be tied, as too often happens, before the funftion of the lungs be eftablifhed, the infant is equally deprived of life. Such indeed is the importance of its connedlion with the placenta, that, even forty-eight hours after birth, if refpifation happens to be fuddenly impeded. Nature ftill makes an effort to avail herfelf of the fundion of the placenta,- by renewing a perceptible puliation at the navel. The beginning of refpiration is the entering upon a new mode of life, and often attended with no fmall difficulty. If the child neither breathes nor moves, it is pronounced ftill-born, or in a (late of apoplexy. In order to draw blood, the midwife, as a probable, though miftaken, remedy, rafhly cuts the cordj when, alas! her fatal fheers, like thofe oT Atropos, cuts fhort the thread of life! In