The puerperal diseases : clinical lectures delivered at Bellevue Hospital / by Fordyce Barker.

  • Benjamin Fordyce Barker
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The puerperal diseases : clinical lectures delivered at Bellevue Hospital / by Fordyce Barker. 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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    clear beef-sonp, or of cliicken or mutton brotli. JChere are those wliose instincts or habits lead them to prefer a cup of tea, or gruel, or panada. Very well, only in- sist that they take enough. Then, as soon as the appetite will permit, guided only by this and the general con- dition of the woman, and not by the question of time, whether it be the third or the ninth day, gradually give solid food, as birds, poultry, tenderloin of beef, or a mut- ton-cho]D. I have had patients eat a good j)iece of ten- derloin steak, the day after labor, with a relish and with happy results. Of course, I only advise such plain, nu- tritious, and digestible food, as good sense would sug- gest, but give enough of this kind. By following this course of regimen, I believe you will find that your pa- tients rest and sleep better, and their functions are estab- lished with less disturbance, than they would be with a spare or insufficient diet. Since I have adopted this method with my puerperal women, I am very sure that I have much less frequently met with those annoying and troublesome nervous phenomena that so commonly fol- low parturition, as the nervous system is then apt to be in a condition of exalted susceptibility. The function of lactation is thus generally established without that disturbance of the system which was called milk-fever, and was formerly so common. It is certainly more in accordance with sound physiological principles to feed puerperal women upon easily digestible nutritive arti- cles, than to administer that Avhich contains but little nourishment and a larger amount of undigestible resi- due. We shall see, by-and-by, that there are many puerperal diseases mainly due to exhaustion and inani- tion. In short, I will say that I have seen much suffer- ing and many diseases in puerperal women, where one of the chief elements was defective nutrition; but I
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