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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    followed by the secretion of milk and a bloodj^ discharge from the vagina like the lochia, it is also certain, as there is no other known condition which gives rise to this assemblage of symp- toms. Pseudo-pregnancy resembles it in the presence of false labor-pains at term, but in this the ordinary signs of gestation are absent, while there is no abdominal tumor, and no secretion of milk. Depaul, who believes that extra-uterine conception cannot be diagnosticated until after the first three or four months of gestation, depends entirely upon the physical signs. He does not appear to attach any importance to the rational symptoms of the early stages, and relies upon the following symptoms, it being premised that the existence of pregnancy is not called in question : the deviation of the uterus; the disproportion between the development of that organ and the duration of pregnancy; the development of the gravid tumor on one side instead of in the middle of the abdomen, as in normal preg- nancy ; the small amount of liquor amnii; the superficial position of the foetus, the head and pelvis of which form pro- jections appreciable by sight or touch ; the abnormal shape of the gravid tumor, the transverse diameter of which is often greater than the vertical. It will not be improper to carefully study the different signs to which M. Depaul and the author have attached diagnostic importance. Many of those relied upon by M. Depaul are of but little value when taken singly, and while clinical records show that this eminent authority has been very successful in his attempts at diagnosis, a critical examination of the physi- cal signs upon which he bases his conclusions will show that they are very unreliable. The neck of the uterus may some- times be displaced and a fcetal tumor appear to be developed upon one side, in consequence of lateral deviation of the uterus. In this case, however, the Organ and its contents can be re- turned to their natural position by changing the posture of the woman, or by manipulation, while an extra-uterine foetal tumor is said by Dubou^ to be generally fixed in its abnor- mal position. This, however, is not an infallible sign, as the ' Loc. citat. pp. 522-8.