Is craniotomy upon the living foetus ever justifiable? / by Robert B. Dixon.

  • Dixon, Robert B. (Robert Brewer)
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Is craniotomy upon the living foetus ever justifiable? / by Robert B. Dixon. 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.

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    A few statistics compiled from the various operations which have been performed by eminent men for the removal of the child by ('cesarean section, or some one of its substitutes, laparo-elvtrotnmy and Porro’s oj»era- tion, will be of the greatest value. The results from these operations during the past few years, under the improved and more skilful methods of operating, have been most pronounced. Out of something over 1,&00 tabulated cases of Caesarean section, occurring iu Kng- land, Germany, France. Belgium, Italy and America, the average mortality was fifty-three |>er cent. ])r. Harris, in the Obttetrieal Journal for February, 1872, rejjorts seventeen caaea which were operated upon the first day of lal>or. Out of these 'j }x r cent of the women recovered and per cent of the children were saves!. Of all the o.n-es operated u|>on in France for fifteen years up to 1861, of those 0)>erated upon early, while the strength of the patient was still good, 81 per cent of the women recovered ; where the patient, however, was in a state of exhaustion when the opera- tion was commenced,only 19 j>er cent recovered. l*p to 187G, when Spaeth 1 operated, every Caesarean case in a century had proved fatal in the Lying-In Hospital in Vienna, and a like fatality had followed for nearly as long a period at the Matemite at Paris, till Professor Tarnier operated in 1H79. Dr. 11. P. Harris,* of Philadelphia, tabulated 39 cases of Caesarean section occurring in the United States, between J8-J2 and 1x70. in which there were thirty-one recoveries and twenty-eight deaths. The result* to tlte children were that twenty-six were born alive, thirty-two were lost, and the result to one was not stated. The prevailing causes of death in the women were exhaustion and peritonitis, and in the children the causes assigned were principally long labor and some operative procedure as craniotomy. > American Journal Medical Science, p. 806, October, IS79. * American .Journal Obstetric#, Vo!, if. 1S72.
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