A treatise on midwifery, and the diseases of women and children.

  • Albert Isaiah Coffin
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on midwifery, and the diseases of women and children. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    state of society, than among the uncivilized, or, if you please, the savage ; but that is owing to their living in accordance with nature, consequently their systems are healthy and natural. At any rate, young ladies, they do no injury to themselves by tight lacing; no unborn children are prema- turely destroyed amongst them from that cause. But to return to facts and experience; our at- tendance was urgently required, in the case of a young woman, residing at some distance, who had been in labour two days, and had three or four medical men to see her; but as there was no pros- pect of a fee, and it being her first labour, she was left under excuses of one sort or other; and when sent for a second time, were either suddenly called away in another direction, suffering from illness, or *' not at home '\ We speedily arrived at the secret of this neglect, as in addition to the above causes, on examination we found the parts tense, rigid, and contracted, and the pains very slight and irregular,, consequently a long, tedious, and difficult time was predicted. We commenced as usual by giving her some strong raspberry leaf tea and cayenne, follow- ing it up in the course of an hour with an injection and the emetic mixture as before described, and repeating the dose until the pains became severe, and the rigidity of the parts relaxed. In six hours the child was born, but so completely entangled with the umbilical cord, which passed twice round the neck and shoulder, that the placenta was torn from the womb, and violent flooding ensued, which in our] opinion, would have proved fatal, had not the system been fortified with the stimulants be-
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