Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Weill describes the case of a woman of twenty-three who gave birth to a
robust boy on the 16th of June, 1877, and suckled him eleven months.
This birth lasted one hour. She became pregnant again and was delivered
under the following circumstances: She had been walking on the evening
of September 5th and returned home about eleven o'clock to sleep. About
3 A.M. she awoke, feeling the necessity of passing urine. She arose and
seated herself for the purpose. She at once uttered a cry and called
her husband, telling him that a child was born and entreating him to
send for a physician. Weill saw the woman in about ten minutes and she
was in the same position, so he ordered her to be carried to bed. On
examining the urinal he found a female child weighing 10 pounds. He
tied the cord and cared for the child. The woman exhibited little
hemorrhage and made a complete recovery. She had apparently slept
soundly through the uterine contractions until the final strong pain,
which awoke her, and which she imagined was a call for urination.
Samelson says that in 1844 he was sent for in Zabelsdorf, some 30 miles
from Berlin, to attend Hannah Rhode in a case of labor. She had passed
easily through eight parturitions. At about ten o'clock in the morning,
after a partially unconscious night, there was a sudden gush of blood
and water from the vagina; she screamed and lapsed into an unconscious
condition. At 10.35 the face presented, soon followed by the body,
after which came a great flow of blood, welling out in several waves.
The child was a male middle-sized, and was some little time in making
himself heard. Only by degrees did the woman's consciousness return.
She felt weary and inclined to sleep, but soon after she awoke and was
much surprised to know what had happened. She had seven or eight pains
in all. Schultze speaks of a woman who, arriving at the period for
delivery, went into an extraordinary state of somnolence, and in this
condition on the third day bore a living male child.
Berthier in 1859 observed a case of melancholia with delirium which
continued through pregnancy. The woman was apparently unconscious of
her condition and was delivered without pain. Cripps mentions a case
in which there was absence of pain in parturition. Depaul mentions a
woman who fell in a public street and was delivered of a living child
during a syncope which lasted four hours. Epley reports painless labor
in a patient with paraplegia. Fahnestock speaks of the case of a woman
who was delivered of a son while in a state of artificial somnambulism,
without pain to herself or injury to the child. Among others mentioning
painless or unconscious labor are Behrens (during profound sleep),
Eger, Tempel, Panis, Agnoia, Blanckmeister, Whitehill, Gillette,
Mattei, Murray, Lemoine, and Moglichkeit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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