A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 : $b Diseases of the genito-urinary and cutaneous systems. Medical ophthalmology, and otology
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4 : $b Diseases of the genito-urinary and cutaneous systems. Medical ophthalmology, and otology
Medicine -- Practice
Of the two varieties, there can be no doubt that the peritoneal is that
which presents itself the more frequently. In 41 autopsies Tuckwell
found the tumor to be peritoneal in 38.
SYMPTOMS.--As a rule, long before the occurrence of pelvic hemorrhage
the patient will have complained of more or less decided symptoms of
disease, or at least of disorder, of the genital system. The symptoms
which mark blood-dyscrasia or pelvic peritonitis or menstrual
irregularity will probably have attracted attention.
When the accident occurs the gravity of the symptoms will depend in
great degree upon the character of the lesion which has taken place.
Sometimes the blood-accumulation takes place so insidiously that the
existence of the tumor created by coagulation takes the practitioner by
surprise. At other times what Barnes has called a cataclysm occurs, and
in a few hours puts the unfortunate patient beyond the sphere of hope
or the resources of art.
In portraying the symptoms of this affection a writer can therefore
merely approximate the truth, satisfying himself with the description
of a case of ordinary severity, avoiding the description of cases in
either extreme, and guarding the reader against supposing that all
attacks give the same intensity of symptoms.
Most prominent among the immediate symptoms are--severe and sudden
pelvic pain; pallor, faintness, and coldness of the extremities; a
sense of exhaustion; nausea and vomiting; metrorrhagia; uterine
tenesmus; enlargement of the abdomen; interference with the bladder and
rectum; small and rapid pulse; subnormal temperature.
These are the symptoms of invasion, those which may be termed
immediate, and which depend upon loss of blood and a sudden traumatic
influence exerted upon living tissues. Very soon, generally within
forty-eight hours, a reaction occurs which is sometimes slight, and at
other times decided. The secondary symptoms are usually the following:
tendency to chilliness; constipation; suppression of urine; tympanites;
high temperature; rapid pulse; and tenderness over abdomen.
These symptoms are due to a combination of two causes--loss of vital
fluid and the invasion of the peritoneum or pelvic areolar tissue by a
mass of blood which becomes coagulated and irritant, on the one hand,
and inflammatory processes resulting from such invasion on the other.
Half of them might be produced by metrorrhagia, and half by sudden and
complete retroversion; but a union of the whole will point toward
hæmatocele and prompt a physical examination.
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