The Dublin practice of midwifery / By Henry Maunsell, M. D., with notes and additions by Chandler R. Gilman.

  • Henry Maunsell
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Dublin practice of midwifery / By Henry Maunsell, M. D., with notes and additions by Chandler R. Gilman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    The attack is sometimes quite sudden, but more generally the patient may be observed for some time previously to be irritable and peevish, [there is a quick sharpness in the voice, a wild expression of the eye, the manner is abrupt and agitated, she sleeps badly, or she may be] melancholy and gloomy, with a pulse somewhat quickened, and evident marks of disorder of the digestive organs, as furred tongue, yellow conjunctiva, and costive bowels. [The influence of disorder of the digestive or- gans, as a pre-disposing cause of puerperal mania, is very well illustrated by a case of Dr. Gooch's. u The patient had the jaundice at the time of her first confinement, and became maniacal; she had a slight degree of it during her second confinement, and suffered from the same disease; she was com- pletely jaundiced before her third confinement, but it was removed by purgatives before labour, and she this time escaped her mental derange- ment.*] The derangement of mind is very various; in one case the patient being gloomy and desponding, while in another she is so violent as to require the employment of coercion, talking and moving about incessantly, and scarcely ever sleeping. In many instances, there is a very strong disposition to com- mit suicide. [The connection of the disease with irritation of the genital apparatus is frequently manifested by the character of the mental disease. The thoughts * Gooch on women, case lst; p. 10S.—Phil. Edition.—Ed.