Lectures on the theory and practice of midwifery : delivered in the theatre of St. George's Hospital / by Robert Lee.

  • Robert Lee
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the theory and practice of midwifery : delivered in the theatre of St. George's Hospital / by Robert Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    haps, you will learn, better than from a general description of the disease, its early symptoms, and the changes which take place in the pelvis during its progress, and the great and almost insurmount- able difficulties it presents to delivery if the pregnancy is allowed to go on to the end of the ninth month. A woman, aged 30, had been forty-eight hours in labour, with her fourth child, when ^I was called to deliver her, on the 17th of January, 1S30. The pelvis was very greatly distorted, the whole head of the child was above the brim, and the orifice of the uterus was not more than half dilated. The pains had nearly ceased, and she was com- pletely exhausted. After perforating the head, three hours elapsed before I succeeded in extracting it with the crotchet, and not till all the bones had been literally torn to pieces. She recovered as if it had been a natural labour. She was a native of Manchester, and had spent several years in one of the cotton manufactories of that town. She married at twenty, and had given birth to three children at the full period, without assistance. During the fourth pregnancy she suffered much from pains about the sacrum and ilia, which were supposed to be rheumatic, and she had become unable to walk. On the 11th of July, 1832, this patieiu was again in labour at the full period, having refused to submit to the induc- tion of premature labour. The labour continued upwards of thirty hours before the os uteri could be felt, or the presenting part ascer- tained ; and during fifteen hours it appeared extremely probable she would die undelivered if we did not perform the Cgesarean operation. The head was perforated and extracted, but with still greater difficulty than in her previous labour. She recovered again, in spite of all the violence that had been employed in ex- tracting the head, as if it had been an easy and natural labour. In the month of June, 1833, when she was at the end of the third month of her next pregnancy, I passed up this slender silver catheter [showing the instrument] into the uterus, and drew off the liquor amnii, and the fcetus was expelled eight days after, without any assistance, and she recovered as if it had been a common abortion. On the 12th February, 1835, I induced premature labour in the same patient at the commencement of the seventh month of the following pregnancy, and the foetus was expelled without assistance, dead, and she recovered again in the most favourable manner. On the 19th of January, 1836, when she was at the end of the sixth month of pregnancy, I made an unsuccessful attempt to per- forate the membranes ; the ergot of rye was given, but it completely failed to excite uterine contractions. Other attempts were made to bring on labour during the two succeeding months, without effect, and it is probable she would have gone to the full period had I not, in the meantime, provided myself with this stiletted probe-pointed silver catheter [showing the instrument]. This was readily passed into the uterus, and the membranes perforated on the 14th of March. Labour followed in a few days, and the nates presented. When the os uteri was sufficiently dilated, the point of
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