Report on the progress of practical medicine, in the departments of midwifery and the diseases of women and children in the years 1845-6 / by Charles West.

  • Charles West
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the progress of practical medicine, in the departments of midwifery and the diseases of women and children in the years 1845-6 / by Charles West. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    25/38 (page 23)
    teenth day, and Mr. Dickins’s patient was up and walking about at the end of three weeks. In both instances the remaining ovary is said to have been quite healthy. Mr. Southern likewise states that the patient on whom he operated in 1843 continues quite well. Dr. Hayny, Mr. Solly, and Dr. Handisyde, operated without success. In one of Dr. Hayny’s patients it was found, after the abdomen was opened, that the tumour had contracted such extensive adhesions as to render its removal impracticable. In the other the operation was completed, but it was found necessary to remove with the tumour a portion of omentum that adhered to it. The first patient died, apparently exhausted, on the fourth day, the other had several attacks of peritonitis, hut lingered on for six weeks, when she died. [In neither instance was any attention paid to the regulation of the temperature at the time of the operation, or to those other points in the general management to which so large share in producing the favorable issue of Dr. Clay’s, Mr. Walne’s, and other English cases seems attributable ] Mr. Solly’s patient died of internal hemorrhage eleven hours after the operation, and Dr. Handisyde’s, whose progress was at no time satisfactory, died seventy days after the removal of the ovary from strangulation of the small intestine by a band of lymph encircling it, and which appeared to have been thrown out during the course of three inflammatory attacks after the operation, of which the pelvic viscera showed ample evidence. DISEASES OF THE VAGINA AND EXTERNAL ORGANS. Vfsico-vnginal fistula. Dr. ZechmeisteiT relates a case, in which the very frequently repeated introduction of the catheter appears to have been fol- lowed by the cure of a fistula of a year’s standing. The instrument was at first introduced every hour, afterwards every two or three hours, thus gradually increasing the intervals between the times of employing it. M. TripetJ gives a minute detail of M. Berard’s operation for the cure of vesico- vaginal fistula (mentioned in the last Report), by inducing occlusion of the vagina. From the history which he gives of the patient’s fatal illness, her death would seem to be scarcelydue to the effects of the operation. A new operation has been suggested for the cure of this accident by M. Jobert§ Its peculiarity consists in detaching a small portion of the vagina by a trans- verse incision from the cervix uteri before inserting the sutures into the edges of the fistulous opening. The result of this is that the edges are very readily brought into contact, and that all stress upon the sutures is prevented It is said to have succeeded in the three cases in which it has hitherto been tried. Dr. Oldhamll has published a fuller account of that fio/licular disease of the vulva, concerning which he contributed a brief notice to Dr. Asbwell’s work on diseases of women. [The situation to which he states the disease to be generally limited, namely, two symmetrical strips of mucous membrane at the posterior half of the entrance of the vagina, within the nymphae, together with the symptoms of* itching, and pain on walking, with a thick discharge, seem to point to Duverney’s glands as the probable seat of the disease, though Dr. Oldham docs not appear to have investigated their condition. I he late Dr Fricke, of Hamburg, was the first to call attention to this affection at the scientific congress at Hamburg, in 1838.1T III. On the Progress of Knowledge with reference to the *t Diseases of Children. A new edition has appeared of Dr. Underwood’s well-known work on the diseases of children, edited by Dr. II. Davies, many of whose notes contain * Oestcrr. Med. Jahrb., August, September, 1845 ; Med. Gazette, July 10, 1816; Edinburgh Med. Surg. Journal, April, 1846. ' ’ + Oe*;err. Med. Wochenschrift, August 16, 1846. t Arch. G<fn. de Mdd., September, 184^. § Gaz des HOpitaux, Jan. 24, 1846. II Me‘b Gazette, May 15., 1846. 1 A very brief notice of his statements is contained in Rust’s Mngazin, Md. xxxhi. P- ..