Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Moore is accredited with the trustworthy report of the case of a woman
who bore a child at the end of the fifth month weighing 1 1/2 pounds
and measuring 9 inches. It was first nourished by dropping liquid food
into its mouth; and at the age of fifteen months it was healthy and
weighed 18 pounds. Eikam saw a case of abortion at the fifth month in
which the fetus was 6 inches in length and weighed about 8 ounces. The
head was sufficiently developed and the cranial bones considerably
advanced in ossification. He tied the cord and placed the fetus in warm
water. It drew up its feet and arms and turned its head from one side
to the other, opening its mouth and trying to breathe. It continued in
this wise for an hour, the action of the heart being visible ten
minutes after the movements ceased. From its imperfectly developed
genitals it was supposed to have been a female. Professor J. Muller, to
whom it was shown, said that it was not more than four months old, and
this coincided with the mother's calculation.
Villemin before the Societe Obstetricale et Gynecologique reported the
case of a two-year-old child, born in the sixth month of pregnancy.
That the child had not had six months of intrauterine life he could
vouch, the statement being borne out by the last menstrual period of
the mother, the date of the first fetal movements, the child's weight,
which was 30 1/2 ounces, and its appearance. Budin had had this infant
under observation from the beginning and corroborated Villemin's
statements. He had examined infants of six or seven months that had
cried and lived a few days, and had found the alveolar cavities filled
with epithelial cells, the lung sinking when placed in a vessel of
water. Charpentier reported a case of premature birth in his practice,
the child being not more than six and a half months and weighing 33 1/2
ounces. So sure was he that it would not live that he placed it in a
basin while he attended to the mother. After this had been done, the
child being still alive, he wrapped it in cotton and was surprised next
day to find it alive. It was then placed in a small, well-heated room
and fed with a spoon on human milk; on the twelfth day it could take
the breast, since which time it thrived and grew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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