Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
There are cases in which, through the ignorance of the midwife or the
physician, prolapsed pelvic organs are mistaken for afterbirth and
extracted. There have been instances in which the whole uterus and its
appendages, not being recognized, have been dragged out. Walters cites
the instance of a woman of twenty-two, who was in her third
confinement. The midwife in attendance, finding the afterbirth did not
come away, pulled at the funis, which broke at its attachment. She then
introduced her hand and tore away what proved to be the whole of the
uterus, with the right ovary and fallopian tube, a portion of the round
ligament, and the left tube and ovarian ligament attached to it. A
large quantity of omentum protruded from the vulva and upper part of
the vagina, and an enormous rent was left. Walters saw the woman
twenty-one hours afterward, and ligated and severed the protruding
omentum. On the twenty-eighth day, after a marvelous recovery, she was
able to drive to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, a distance of five
miles. At the time of report, two years and six months after the
mutilation, she was in perfect health. Walters looked into the
statistics of such cases and found 36 accidental removals of the uterus
in the puerperium with 14 recoveries. All but three of these were
without a doubt attended by previous inversion of the uterus.
A medical man was tried for manslaughter in 1878 because he made a
similar mistake. He had delivered a woman by means of the forceps, and,
after delivery, brought away what he thought a tumor. This "tumor"
consisted of the uterus, with the placenta attached to the fundus, the
funis, a portion of the lateral ligament, containing one ovary and
about three inches of vagina. The uterus was not inverted. A horrible
case, with similar results, happened in France, and was reported by
Tardieu. A brutal peasant, whose wife was pregnant, dragged out a fetus
of seven months, together with the uterus and the whole intestinal
canal, from within 50 cm. of the pylorus to within 8 cm. of the
ileocecal valve. The woman was seen three-quarters of an hour after the
intestines had been found in the yard (where the brute had thrown
them), still alive and reproaching her murderer. Hoffman cites an
instance in which a midwife, in her anxiety to extract the afterbirth,
made traction on the cord, brought out the uterus, ovaries, and tubes,
and tore the vulva and perineum as far as the anus.
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