Book Description

Excerpt from The Birmingham Medical Review, Vol. 45: A Monthly Journal of the Medical Sciences; January to June The subject of uterine inertia and its treatment is one which appeals forcibly to all those who have to attend cases of midwifery, and they constitute the large majority of the medical profession; the subject is one also which has occupied the attention of medical writers from earliest recorded times; thus Hippocrates, who wrote 460 years before the Christian era, in his first book of the Diseases of Women, says: - "If the child presents fair, and is not easily delivered, sternutatories should be administered, and the patient should stop her mouth and nose that they may operate the more effectually. She must also be shaken in this manner: Let her be fastened to the bed by a broad band crossing her breast, her legs being bended to the lower part of the bed, the other end of which must be elevated by two assistants, who gently shake her by intervals until her pains expel the child." As regards the treatment of inertia in the third stage, he says: - "If the secundines come not away easily, the child must be left hanging to them and the woman seated on a high stool, that the f tus by its weight may drag them along, and lest this should be too suddenly effected the child may be laid on two bladders filled with water and covered with wool, the. bladders being pricked; as the water evacuates they will subside, and the child sinking gradually will gently draw the secundines away, but should the navel string be broken proper weights must be tied to it in order to answer the same purpose." Such gentle methods might well have been more adhered to in later times. I regret that there is not time to quote from other ancient writers, as they give directions for the treatment of uterine inertia which are both amusing and instructive. The subject may be considered by arranging it under the following headings: - In the first stage of labour; in the second stage of labour; in the third stage of labour. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."