On the symptoms, causes, and treatment of puerperal insanity / by James Reid, M.D.
- Reid, James, M.D.
- Date:
- [1848]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the symptoms, causes, and treatment of puerperal insanity / by James Reid, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![perforating the cranium of the fojtus. Two or three convulsive attacks came on even after the labour was terminated, accompanied Ijy great stupor, on recoverhig from which, mania evidenced itself fully. I was re- quested to visit the patient, and she was, ai'ter being removed to the infirmary for a fcAV days, sent to a lunatic asylum, from wliich she returned completely cured in about four months from the time of the attack. She has since that time borne twins on two separate occasions, Mr. Robarts informs me, without any return of a similar attack. Another point of connexion between the two complaints is, that each of them is more liable to attack the female in her first accouchement than in after ones. The similarity of condition in the nervous system, existing between delirium tremens and puerperal mania, has already been adverted to both exhibiting great exhaustion of vital power, with much excitability. Amongst the lower class of females who apply for entrance into paro- chial infirmaries at the expected j)eriod of accouchement, a large pro- portion of them are addicted to the daily use of ardent spirits; and, from some inquiries which I h^'e instituted during the last three year.s, I have found that the habitual consumption of oinum amongst the same class is to a far greater extent than is generally supposed by the public. I have been surprised at discovering how universal the practice has be- come, and to what an extent in some cases this drug is taken by them with impimity, or rather, -svithout immediate fatal effects. It is not at all an uncommon circumstance in the infirmary for the head nurse to discover under the pillows of the patients a phial of laudanum or a box of opium pills, secretly put there for daily use ; and several young girls even have stated, on being questioned, that independently of the use of spirituous liquors, they are in the habit of purchasing daily their penny- worth, or more, of laudanum as a dram, and that there are favourite druggists' shops, at which they get better measure than elsewhere. It might naturally be expected, that at the period of labour, with the re- moval of such accustomed stimulus, and its usual consequences, we should find cases of puerperal mania much more frequent in this class, but the tabular statement already given does not bear out the fact. I may be allowed, however, to state, that in the last eighteen years, during which period I have had to sign the certificates of all those who are received as insane into the iufirmaiy, previously to their being transmitted to the various lunatic asylums in the county, I have frequently of late been struck with the increase in the number of cases of general insanity, which is certainly disproportionate to the annual increase of population; the habitual use of opium amongst this class may perhaps explain the fact. In the pure puerperal mania, the disturbance of the system arising from the sometimes sudden suppression of the lochial discharge and the full advent of the lacteal secretion, is one of the principal and imme- diate exciting causes of the complaint, and, at all events, ])laces the cerc- ])ral organs in such a condition that any great moral shock, or previous hereditary tendency, has then full opportunity of producing clerange- ent of function to a greater or less extent. In the comparatively few](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21474692_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
