The principles and practice of obstetrics / by Gunning S. Bedford.
- Gunning S. Bedford
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The principles and practice of obstetrics / by Gunning S. Bedford. 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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![excessive sensibility of the mamma. Irritability if the breast is rot, in my opinion, of rare occurrence. On the contrary, you will often meet with it, and it is important that you should not mistake it for othet conditions of the organ. When accompanied by tumor, it may possibly be confounded with cysts, hydatids, etc., which occasionally develop themselves in the mammary glands ; but a due degree of attention will enable you to form a correct opinion. In hydatids and cysts, there is neither pain nor tenderness—but there is tension, and subsequently, fluc- tuation. In sclrrhus, the tumor is of extraordinary hardness, slightly tender, and characterized by a lancinating pain, usually limited to the breast itself—the skin covering the tumor becomes adherent, and of a tuberculated character. Mastodynia neuralgica, whether accompanied by a tumor or not, may be considered as especially connected with undue irritability of constitu- tion, and is in more or less alliance with some abnormal state of the menstrual function, either menorrhagia, dysmenorrhcea, or defective menstruation. The treatment should be both general and local, the former being in- tended to fortify the constitution, and break up, if I may so term it, the irritable diathesis; the object of the latter, the local treatment, being the temporary mitigation of pain. The system, in these cases, will usually improve under a judicious ad- ministration of the ferruginous preparations, sea-bathing, exercise in the open air, nutritious diet, etc. Sir Astley Cooper recommended, as a local application, a plaster consisting of equal parts of the ceratum sapo- nis and extraclum belladonna?, or a poultice of bread crumbs and tincture of belladonna. As the girl before us is laboring under a deficiency of the menstrual function, and as she is evidently chlorotic, I shall order for her the fol- lowing pills, two of which are to be taken daily: ]£ Ferri Sesquioxydi gr. xii Pil. Galban. c. ) -- . Pil. Colo. c. ) Theriaci . . . . . q. s. AT. ft. pil. xij The diet should be nutritious—and the painful breast may be rubbed with equal parts of sweet-oil and laudanum. Pudendal Hernia in the Right Labium Externum, in a married Woman, aged forty-two Years, the Mother of five Children.—■ Mrs. 0. says she has a swelling in the lower portion of her person, which increases when she walks, and sometimes causes her much pain. How long, Mrs. O., have you been troubled with the swelling of which you speak? About two months, sir. Do you know what](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21034357_0585.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
