A memoir on extra-uterine gestation / [William Campbell].

  • William Campbell
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A memoir on extra-uterine gestation / [William Campbell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    162/170 page 150
    150° during the retention of the extra-uterine foetus, conceived again, when the product was also extra-uterine, and the bones . of both were afterwards evacuated in succession,—those of one by an abscess at the right, and those of the other by a similar process at the left side of the umbilicus. The conduct of Cyprianus, to say the least of it, was remarkable for want of tenderness towards his patient; as, after enlarging the pre-existing aperture, he not only introduced his own hand in- | to the abdominal cavity, but permitted others to do the same; the patient, however, recovered so well, that two years after the operation, she produced one child naturally, and twelve months thereafter, twins. The success which was said to have attended the perform- ance of the Cesarean section by continental practitioners during the last century,! and their frequent publication of successful instances since that period, have no doubt encour- aged members of the profession in other countries to have re- course to gastrotomy in the cases under consideration. Ad- mitting the operations in question to have been authentic, and their success as great as we have been given to understand, it will immediately be seen, however, that in all countries, when performed early, 7. ¢. with a view to the preservation of the foetus, the recoveries after gastrotomy have been in the inverse ratio of those from the Cesarean operation. Upon principle, therefore, the adoption of gastrotomy must be op- posed until the excitement inseparable from gestation has subsided; the system of the parent has been restored to its unimpregnated condition, or nearly so; and nature has evin- ced a disposition to remove the extraneous mass, in which light the foetus, after the extinction of its life, must be viewed. When the suppurative process is established, or a breach is actually formed in the parietes of the abdomen, experience proves that the integuments may, with safety, be largely in- cised, or the pre-existing aperture freely dilated, with almost certain success. Of thirty cases in which gastrotomy was performed, or the breach dilated, twenty-eight patients 1 Simon, Mem. Acad. Roy. de Chir., vol. iii, p. 210.
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