Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. CX. March, 1916. No. 3Various
Science
Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. CX. March, 1916. No. 3
Various
Medicine -- Periodicals
Berry Hart says the prognosis is good under proper treatment and the
return of menstruation is such a good sign that emmenagogues should be
employed.
Tweedy & Wrench say some 60 per cent of all cases recover, but if, as
the patient gets fatter and stronger the mind does not improve, the
prognosis is bad.
In the subject of treatment our authorities again differ, but not in the
usual way. Webster briefly dismisses it with advising an asylum, as does
Hirst, except in cases of refusal of families or friends to commit the
patient, when general symptomatic treatment is necessary. Edgar and De
Lee both are no more explicit. Berry Hart with his regard for the return
of menstruation, says when the patient gains weight to use hot sitz
baths, aloes and iron pills and binoxide of manganese two grains in
pills thrice daily should be administered. In lactational insanity
immediate weaning of the baby is indicated. Williams feels that it is a
good deal of an obstetric problem because of its presumably infective
causes and we must search for the underlying etiologic factor for the
cause. The symptomatic treatment he refers to only generally and
suggests, if immediate improvement is not seen, to refer to a
psychiatrist.
Tweedy & Wrench logically prescribe rest, food, excretion, and exercise
as the key notes of prevention and cure. When the attack is established,
use forty grains of bromide and ten of chloral every two hours. With
acute mania, hyoscine is the best stand-by.
Lewis of Chicago gives many practical suggestions.
The deduction and conclusions that we may draw from this summary of the
literature and from our own experience are these:
First: We have a definite clinical entity.
Second: Its etiology is in a great number of cases toxic, either
bacterial or chemical, except in the lactational type which is one
of general impoverishment of the body from prolonged nursing.
Third: It occurs in about one in 2,000 labors at present and it
causes about 6 per cent of all insanity in the female.
Fourth: Its types, which I am poorly equipped to discuss
technically, I will group briefly as manias and melancholias. At
first thought we would expect the former to be the strictly
puerperal type, and the latter the lactational and in general this
classification is correct.
Fifth: Symptoms of the former have a more or less sudden onset
frequently preceded by a febrile disturbance and a pulse that either
fails to fall as the temperature does or even climbs higher. There
may or may not have been foul lochia previously. The onset is
characterized by hallucinations, sexual and religious excitement,
suicidal and infanticidal promptings, the latter more common in the
lactational type.
Sixth: The prognosis is fairly good and as time goes on is
improving, especially for the class of cases due to infections or
intoxications.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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