The principles and practice of obstetrics : including the treatment of chronic inflammation of the uterus, considered as a frequent cause of abortion / by Henry Miller.

  • Miller, Henry, 1800-1874.
Date:
1858
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of obstetrics : including the treatment of chronic inflammation of the uterus, considered as a frequent cause of abortion / by Henry Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    brane in its centre. The ligaments are the anterior and posterior sacro- coccygeal, which pass in a layer from the faces of the sacrum to those of the coccyx. The articulation of the pelvic bones, with other portions of the skeleton, need not be described for obstetric purposes; but the connection of the sacrum with the last vertebra of the loins merits some notice at our hand. This articulation (the sacro-vertebral) is formed substantially as those between the several vertebrae of the spine, but it must be observed that the articular facets of the sac- rum and last lumbar vertebra have such a degree of obliquity that, when they are brought together, the sacrum, directed backwards, makes with the spine a salient angle in front, denominated the sacro-vertebral angle or promontory, which is often referred to in de- scribing the pelvis. SECTION III. THE PELVIS AS A WHOLE. The different bones which have been described, when joined together, constitute a basin-like cavity, of an irregularly conoidal figure, the base of which is directed upwards and forwards, whilst the truncated apex looks downwards and backwards. A glance at the internal surface of this cavity discovers that it is naturally divided, by a sort of ply, called the superior strait, into a superior and an inferior portion. The superior, widely-expanded portion is denominated the greater pelvis: the inferior, narrower and deeper, is the lesser pelvis, or, as it is often called, the pelvic excavation. THE GREATER PELVIS. The greater pelvis is of comparatively little importance in ob- stetrics proper. The gravid uterus, it is true, is sustained by it, and its structure admirably fits it for this office, but it has no special relation to parturition. In cursorily examining it, we may note: (1.) A great vacuity in front, not found in the pelvis of quad- rupeds, comprised between a line extending from the antero- superior spinous process of one ilium to that of the other and the horizontal branches of the pubes. Occupied in the living body by soft and extensible tissues, this vacuity permits the uterus to gravi- tate forwards during advanced pregnancy, and thus relieves the pelvic viscera from its pressure. (2.) The internal iliac fossaz on the