Dr. Conquest's outlines of midwifery : intended as a text-book for students, and a book of reference for junior practitioners.

  • Conquest, Dr.
Date:
1854
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Conquest's outlines of midwifery : intended as a text-book for students, and a book of reference for junior practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    most serious cases I ever met with happened as late as the twelfth clay, and nearly proved fatal, although the loss of blood was comparatively trifling. The treatment of haemorrhage must be regulated rather by the effect of the loss of blood than by the quantity which escapes. Dr. Ramsbotham has re- corded two cases in which each patient died from the loss of only a pint of blood.—J. M. W.] The hcemorrhage referred to is not the loss of blood which very frequently attends that contraction of the uterus which expels the child and at the same time loosens a small portion of the placenta, nor that which merely circulated through the uterus, and which, on the complete detachment of the placenta, and the contraction of the organ, is expelled from its vessels, now so diminished in their size; but it is those successive gushes, or the more insidious but not less dangerous stillicidium of the vital fluid, which, if not arrested, sooner or later fatally exhausts the sub- ject of them. The immediate consequences of the flooding may not be alarming, and will very much depend on the velocity with which the blood escapes, and the con- stitutional powers of the patient; but if the hasraor- rhage proceeds, in some cases, in a minute or two the pulse sinks, the countenance assumes a wild and ex- sanguineous aspect, and the surface and extremities of the body become relaxed and bedewed with cold perspiration. The poor creature sighs repeatedly and deeply; vomits; becomes extremely restless, with hurried respiration; gasps, and expires.