On puerperal convulsions / by Robert Dyce.

  • Dyce, Robert, 1798-1869.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On puerperal convulsions / by Robert Dyce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    instantly rallied from the faint, and at midnight she was quite her¬ self, vision perfect. Pulse soft and calm ; she had no headache, having slept for nearly three hours. Her head was shaved, calomel was ordered, and a senna draught to he given in the morning. Spare diet was enjoined ; exclusion of light from the room and great quietness were enforced. She had no further check ; and her recovery was rapid and complete, and she nursed her child for several months. This patient had no oedema either of her limbs or her face, nor did she suffer from headache ; in short, she was in perfect health until the premonitory symptom of convulsions (acute pain at the scrobicuius cordis) attacked her the previous night. Pier friends, however, had remarked that she had grown fat and plump during the latter months of her pregnancy. It is not often that any pre¬ monitory symptom precedes the convulsion ; but there are some, and this is one, acute pain at the stomach that ought never to be neglected, where, if it be accompanied by a corresponding fulness and corpulence of the system, clearly indicate an overloaded state of the vascular system, and the brain especially, and to save the patient, the free and early use of the lancet must be resorted to. This patient lost, at least, eighty ounces within twenty-four hours, and though during the last bleeding a momentary alarm arose from the faint, there was not a drop taken too much. It seems to me, also, clear that the first bleeding averted for a time the convulsion ; and had the excitement and irritation of labour not come on so soon, and allowed a little time for the free action of the bowels and other lowering remedies to have had effect, the convulsion in all probability might have altogether been prevented. This patient, in three subsequent pregnancies, had the same tendency to corpulence, but without any indication to the head. During her second pregnancy, I bled her to twelve ounces and enjoined abstinence ; but in two subsequent pregnancies, by abstain¬ ing from all stimulants, and with a very limited allowance of animal food, with strict attention to the bowels, every untoward symptom was avoided. ». CHALMERS AND CO., PRINTERS, ABERDEEN,
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