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
Catalogue details

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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    street, insufficiently nourislied and badly nursed, the poor patient is cut off from all hope of a cure. For cases of this description an asylum offers the only chance of recovery. Some excellent observations on puerperal mania will be found in Nos. 1, 2. and 5. of the Psycho- logical Journal. —J. M. W.] Laceration of the Perineum. This accident is met vs^ith in every degree, from the mere rupture of the frasnum labiorum, to a de- struction of continuity, not only throughout the whole length of the perineum, but of the parietes of the lower part of the rectum and vagina, so as to lay the two passages into one. The slightest degree of the accident is very common in first labours, and is a circumstance of no importance; but when the sphincter ani is completely divided, the woman is ever afterwards incapable of retaining her fasces. Sometimes this melancholy occurrence is unavoid- able, but most commonly it is referable to negligence. It may occur occasionally notwithstanding the best management, and that even in natural labour, if the OS externum be small and rigid, the head of the child large, and the pains very powerful; but sometimes it may be traced to mismanagement of the forceps, par- ticularly if the instrument be constructed without the curve of the shank; or to the omission of necessary support of the perineum, as the head is excluded f;'om the vagina.