Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
By the advent of antisepsis and the improvements of Porro and others,
Cesarean section has come to be a quite frequent event, and a record of
the successful cases would hardly be considered a matter of
extraordinary interest, and would be out of the province of this work,
but a citation of anomalous cases will be given. Baldwin reports a case
of Cesarean section on a typical rachitic dwarf of twenty-four, who
weighed 100 pounds and was only 47 1/2 inches tall. It was the ninth
American case, according to the calculation of Harris, only the third
successful one, and the first successful one in Ohio. The woman had a
uniformly contracted pelvis whose anteroposterior diameter was about 1
1/4 inches. The hygienic surroundings for the operation were not of the
best, as the woman lived in a cellar. Tait's method of performing the
operation was determined upon and successfully performed. Convalescence
was prompt, and in three weeks the case was dismissed. The child was a
female of 7 1/2 pounds which inherited the deformities of its mother.
It thrived for nine and a half months, when it died of angina Ludovici.
Figure 15 represents the mother and child.
Harris gives an account of an operation upon a rachitic dwarf who was
impregnated by a large man, a baby weighing 14 pounds and measuring 20
inches being delivered by the knife. St. Braun gives the account of a
Porro-Cesarean operation in the case of a rachitic dwarf 3 feet 10
inches tall, in which both the mother and child recovered. Munde speaks
of twins being delivered by Cesarean section. Franklin gives the
instance of a woman delivered at full term of a living child by this
means, in whom was also found a dead fetus. It lay behind the stump of
the amputated cervix, in the culdesac of Douglas. The patient died of
hemorrhage.
Croston reports a case of Cesarean section on a primipara of
twenty-four at full term, with the delivery of a double female monster
weighing 12 1/2 pounds. This monster consisted of two females of about
the same size, united from the sternal notch to the navel, having one
cord and one placenta. It was stillborn. The diagnosis was made before
operation by vaginal examination. In a communication to Croston,
Harris remarked that this was the first successful Cesarean section for
double monstrous conception in America, and added that in 1881 Collins
and Leidy performed the same operation without success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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