The principles and practice of midwifery : with some of the diseases of women.
- Milne, Alexander
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The principles and practice of midwifery : with some of the diseases of women. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![The woman is often languid, looks pale and haggard, and there is a dusky circle around the eyes. Headache, vertigo, palpitation, and fainting are not uncommon in severe cases. Treatment.—In the acute cases, leech or scarify the uterus, and then throw into the vagina injections of warm water. Give a saline purgative, and afterwards insert into the rectum suppositories of morphia. There is a caution to be noted with respect to the little local bleeding. Don’t employ it within a week of the men- strual ])eriod, in case of repelling that flow. For vesical irritation, give some hyoscyamus, camphor, and buchu, or pareira, by the mouth, and inject into the bladder ^ grain of morph, hydrochlor., in mucilage. An opium or belladonna pessary in the vagina will also soothe a little. As regards the ordinary chronic form, the treatment is different. We must keep the constitutional state in view. Is there a phthisis, a cardiac affection, ansema, the syphilitic taint, &c. % If so, we must first grapple with these maladies in the most approved and efficient manner. Have we any drugs that act as tonics (either direct or indirect) to the uterus? We think so, and that guaiacum, in particular, is one of them. Give the powder in 15-grain doses, along with 5 grains of ergot, twice a-day. This will soon tell favourably. Balsam of copaiba confers speedy benefit, but it is apt to cause nausea, and pain and irritation of the stomach and intestines, and it has a vile odour, and occasions an equally bad eructation. Cubebs is less offensive, but hardly so effectual. Buchu, uvse ursi, Canada balsam, and tincture of benzoin help a good deal. Mastiche, like Napoleon the Third, has now got into disrepute. The various preparations of hron are, of course, essential in anaemia; but in plethora we must ply the saline cathartics, and enjoin moderate diet and hard work. Tincture of cantharides is also of considerable ser- vice.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24991235_0620.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
