Children, Their Hydropathic Management in Health and Disease; A Descriptive and Practical Work Designed as a Guide for Families and Physicians (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. W Blood-letting in Pregnancy--Erroneous Opinions on the Subject--Reasons why Blood-letting has been practiced in this state of the System--Nausea and Vomiting an Evidence of benevolent Design in the Creator--Blood-letting not a harmless Practice--Animal Food--Of Longing in Pregnancy--Singular Facts in regard to this Symptom--The most disgusting Articles sometimes craved--Longing does not occur in Persons of good Health, or of good Habits--It should not be gratified--Different Opinions on the Subject. Not many years since, it was very generally supposed that a woman could not pass through the period of pregnancy safely without being bled; and although a change has been wrought in the public mind in regard to this practice, there are yet many who labor under erroneous impressions in regard to this subject. There are those who regard it as indispensable to resort to this measure, notwithstanding there may be no particular symptom that, under other circumstances, would be considered necessary to warrant a resort to the measure. It must be admitted, however, that pregnancy is attended with a degree of fullness, and a tendency to plethora, which does not obtain in other states of tho system. There is, indeed, always, during pregnancy, a greater liability to febrile and inflammatory diseases than is ordinarily experienced. But all this does not crove that blood-letting should be practiced in all, or in any considerable number of cases. Besides, also, it is doubted by many honest and able practitioners of the medical art, as to whether bleeding is ever, under any circumstances, necessary. There are others, too, who believe in the comparative necessity of blood-letting under certain conditions of the system, but who, at the same time, hold that there ar...