Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Discharge of the Fetus through the Abdominal Walls.--Margaret Parry of
Berkshire in 1668 voided the bones of a fetus through the flesh above
the os pubis, and in 1684 she was alive and well, having had healthy
children afterward. Brodie reports the history of a case in a negress
who voided a fetus from an abscess at the navel about the seventeenth
month of conception. Modern instances of the discharge of the
extrauterine fetus from the walls of the abdomen are frequently
reported. Algora speaks of an abdominal pregnancy in which there was
spontaneous perforation of the anterior abdominal parietes, followed by
death. Bouzal cites an extraordinary case of ectopic gestation in which
there was natural expulsion of the fetus through abdominal walls, with
subsequent intestinal strangulation. An artificial anus was established
and the mother recovered. Brodie, Dunglison, Erich, Rodbard, Fox, and
Wilson are among others reporting the expulsion of remnants of ectopic
pregnancies through the abdominal parietes. Campbell quotes the case of
a Polish woman, aged thirty-five, the mother of nine children, most of
whom were stillborn, who conceived for the tenth time, the gestation
being normal up to the lying-in period. She had pains followed by
extraordinary effusion and some blood into the vagina. After various
protracted complaints the abdominal tumor became painful and inflamed
in the umbilical region. A breach in the walls soon formed, giving exit
to purulent matter and all the bones of a fetus. During this process
the patient received no medical treatment, and frequently no assistance
in dressing the opening. She recovered, but had an artificial anus all
her life. Sarah McKinna was married at sixteen and menstruated for the
first time a month thereafter. Ten months after marriage she showed
signs of pregnancy and was delivered at full term of a living child;
the second child was born ten months after the first, and the second
month after the second birth she again showed signs of pregnancy. At
the close of nine months these symptoms, with the exception of the
suppression of menses, subsided, and in this state she continued for
six years. During the first four years she felt discomfort in the
region of the umbilicus. About the seventh year she suffered
tumefaction of the abdomen and thought she had conceived again. The
abscess burst and an elbow of the fetus protruded from the wound. A
butcher enlarged the wound and, fixing his finger under the jaw of the
fetus, extracted the head. On looking into the abdomen he perceived a
black object, whereupon he introduced his hand and extracted piecemeal
an entire fetal skeleton and some decomposed animal-matter. The abdomen
was bound up, and in six weeks the woman was enabled to superintend her
domestic affairs; excepting a ventral hernia she had no bad
after-results. Kimura, quoted by Whitney, speaks of a case of
extrauterine pregnancy in a Japanese woman of forty-one similar to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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