An account of seventy-six consecutive cases of abdominal section : (performed between December 23, 1879 and November 1, 1880) / [R.L. Tait].

  • Lawson Tait
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of seventy-six consecutive cases of abdominal section : (performed between December 23, 1879 and November 1, 1880) / [R.L. Tait]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    In August, 1879, a third child was born about six weeks before the full time, when again the haemorrhage was extreme. Dr. CoLLis favours me with the following notes of the progress of this most interesting case. He saw her first on May 31st of this year, when he was informed that up to a fort- night before his visit she had missed three menstrual periods, V)ut that during the fortnight there had been a continuous flow. Neither she nor her husband thought it possible that she was pregnant. They regarded it as her usual profuse and protracted menstruation; but on examination Dr. CoLLis found the uterus enlarged. He kept her in bed and gave her astringents, and afterwards ergot and bromide of potash. Finally he had to plug the vagina, and then he telegraphed for me to see her with him. I saw her on the evening of June 13th, and found the patient very angemic and the uterus enlarged as if by a pregnancy of the third month. The cervix being closed it was clear that we must dilate, and for that purpose I introduced my instruments which act by continuous elastic pressure. In a few hours dilatation had proceeded so far that, after placing the patient under ether, I was able to empty the uterus of a large quantity of clot and some villous cysts. These, I presume, were remains of a chorion of which the villi had undergone cystic dilatation, but nothing in the shape of membranous or placental structure could be discovered. Recognising the urgent necessity of there being h.o more hasmorrhage, I took great pains to remove everything from the uterus, and I scraped the whole of the inner surface over with a curette. She had no further loss and made a good recovery till the 10th of July, when her period came on very profusely, lasted ten days, and left her very anaemic and exhausted. During the whole time she took large doses of bromide of potash and ergot, but with no apparent effect. HEemorrhage again occurred on July the 29th, by which time she had been removed to Malvern, where she was under the care of Drs. Pike and Weir. The ha3m- orrhage was extreme, and everything was tried, including hypo- dermic injections of ergotin, without any avad. I was sent for
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