Extra-uterine pregnancy; its causes, species, pathological anatomy, clinical history, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

  • Parry, John S. (John Stubbs), 1843-1876.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extra-uterine pregnancy; its causes, species, pathological anatomy, clinical history, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    CHAPTEE YIII. THE DIAGNOSIS. Errors are frequent—Before the foetal heart can be heard—Value of various symptoms —From pelvic inflammations ; pelvic haematocele—From pregnancy of an undeveloped uterine horn—After the foetal heart can be heard—Value of different symptoms— From normal pregnancy—Retroversion of gravid uterus—Rupture of uterus—After the death of the child—Value of different symptoms—From fibroid and ovarian tumors, and cancer of the fundus uteri—Use of trocar or aspirator for diagnostic purposes—From piliferous cyst of the ovary—Diagnosis of the species. The history of misplaced gestation abounds in illustrations of errors in diagnosis committed by the most eminent and experienced men. Some of the most remarkable errors are those in which uterine has been mistaken for extra-uterine pregnancy. Women have more than once, only very narrowly escaped being subjected to grave surgical operations, by the child being born by the natural passages. It is well known that Heim of Berlin,^ who, Montgomery says, was considered the Magnus Apollo on all questions concerning this accident, induced the celebrated Diffenbach to open the abdominal cavity to remove an extra-uterine foetus, when the woman was not even pregnant. The operation was performed August 5, 1828, solely upon the authority of Dr. Heim. A careful ex- amination of the history of the woman, who- fortunately recovered, does not reveal reasons sufficient to have led to this diagnosis. In the same year another woman is said to have been ope- rated on in Berlin, who, the gastrotomy proved, was not carrying an extra-uterine child, but was suffering from an intestinal tumor. But a few years since. Meadows, of London, performed the same operation only to find two tumors, one uterine and the other omental. Keller quotes Schreyer as authority for saying that two physicians, who thought they ' Montgomery, An Exposition of the Signs and Symptoms of Pregnancy, 8vo.,PliiIa., 1857, p. 331.