Fourteen cases of ovariotomy / by Thomas Keith.

  • Thomas Keith
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourteen cases of ovariotomy / by Thomas Keith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    next day after free perspiration, without doing any harm. The seventh night was restless, and in the morning for the first time the pulse was rising. There was some abdominal tenderness, which was not relieved by having the bowels moved by enema. By mid¬ day the distention was considerable, and as there was some pull upon the clamp, it was removed. This was followed by relief of the pain, and to a considerable extent of the distention also. The pulse continued to rise, and towards afternoon vomiting came on, and though the sutures had been removed some days before, no harm was done to the freshly united wound by the first attacks of vomiting. Some strips of plaster were, however, put on, not that they were absolutely necessary, but to give confidence during the vomiting. The attacks of vomiting went on every half-hour, and were very severe, the pulse having now risen to 150, and her con¬ dition for some hours was most critical. The state of the pedicle was examined after every attack. It had considerably retracted, and there had been some oozing from it, and during every fit of retching there was a gush of yellow serum from the abdominal cavity. About midnight a large vessel was observed bleeding from the stump of the pedicle ; this was at once secured, and the whole freely touched with the perchloride of iron. Towards morning copious serous discharges came from the bowels, and the vomiting then ceased. In a few days there was decided fulness of the recto-vaginal fossa, but as there was now a good deal of discharge from the lower end of the incision—at first of a serous oily nature, then dirty serous, and then purulent—it was not interfered with, but its degree of tenseness carefully watched from day to day. By the end of the third week the discharge from the wound was copi¬ ous, and continued more or less for several weeks. During all this time the pulse continued high, but her recovery—thanks to the most careful and intelligent of nursing—was now uninterrupted, and six weeks after the operation she was thoroughly convalescent. She was round-shouldered for some time, and had a considerable stoop, but this soon wore off when she began to get out, and the spine quickly regained its normal curvature ; and in a short time it was impossible to recognise, in the healthy-looking blooming girl, the subject of all the anxious doubts of a few months before. Case IY.—Multilocular Ovarian Tumour, iceiglving 26 pounds. Ovariotomy. Recovery. On the 18th of October last, Dr M‘Watt of Dunse asked me to see Mrs J., aged fifty, who had sought his advice four months before on account of ovarian disease. She was then scarcely able to retain any food, and had had several attacks of vomiting of blood. Under treatment the vomiting ceased, and her general health became much improved till live weeks before 1 saw her, when she was obliged to take to bed on account of severe abdominal pain which had continued more or less ever since. She was a very little woman, pale, extremely emaciated, and
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