Puerperal convalescence and the diseases of the puerperal period / by Joseph Kucher.

  • Kucher, Joseph.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Puerperal convalescence and the diseases of the puerperal period / by Joseph Kucher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    often (in about fifty per cent.) met with in lying-in hospitals than in private practice, where disturb- ances and pathological changes in the genital regions are less frequent. I take the temperature in the axilla, and add 1 to 1^°, which is the difference be- tween the temperature of the axilla and the vagina. AFTER-PAI]SS are so common in multiparse that they are con- sidered physiological as long as they are slight or pass off soon, and become abnormal only through their intensity or duration, or when they are met with in primiparse. The causes of after-pains are precipitate labor, over-extension of uterus (as in cases of hydramnion), twins, a large child, when sufiicient time is not given to the uterus to decrease gradually in size, or if something has been left in the cavity, which interferes with the firm contraction of the uterus, as blood-clots, portions of placenta, or a uterine polyp. After-pains begin usually some hours after labor, are of ten very severe, and lancinate toward the legs. Sometimes patients complain more of cramps in the thighs and legs than of pains in the abdomen. Al- though the pain is intermittent, it usually recurs so quickly that the patient cannot sleep or rest; there is no tenderness over the uterus on pressure. The better the uterus contracts, the sooner the after-pains cease. Friction of the uterus, firm