The bearings of chronic disease of the heart upon pregnancy, parturition, and childbed : with papers on puerperal pluero-pneumonia and eclampsia / by Angus MacDonald.

  • Macdonald, Angus, 1836-1886.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The bearings of chronic disease of the heart upon pregnancy, parturition, and childbed : with papers on puerperal pluero-pneumonia and eclampsia / by Angus MacDonald. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    inadequate idea of the scope and importance of his department of the medical art and science; and he is, at the same time, certain to allow his position in practice to degenerate into the cultivation of what at best is only an outpost of applied sur- gery. Much of the disfavour and affected hauteur with which obstetrical medicine has frequently been treated by pure physicians and surgeons, is doubtless traceable to the some- what contracted notion that we ourselves have formed of the value and dignity of obstetrics, and can only be removed by our strongly asserting and proving that neither in loftiness of aim, in scientific precision, nor in practical importance, is gynecology a whit behind either of her sisters. Only by entertaining an elevated idea of his department and its duties, can the obstetrician expect to practise with success and comfort the all-important branch of the healing art which he has selected as his own. Being convinced that the general views entertained by the members of our department of medicine on the subject in hand are held by them with considerable looseness, and that a dis- cussion upon the question might be the commencement of an inquiry which would eventuate in clearing up some points that are at present unsettled, I have for some time back been directing a good deal of attention to the matter, in the endeavour to form accurate views respecting it. With this object before me, I have collected together all the cases that I have notes of. which have occurred in my own practice or in that of my dispensary pupils, and to these I have added several obtained from medical friends, and also others selected from medical literature. I have thus been able to put together a considerable collection of what seem to me extremely valuable cases. Now, I would begin by pointing out that nearly all sys- tematic works on midwifery mention organic heart disease with more or less prominence as a serious complication of