Transactions of the Obstetrical Society of London Volume 22 (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. 1881 Excerpt: ... given consisted in placing a pessary carefully fitted and so adjusted as to keep up a constant gentle pressure in the proper direction--a Hodge-shaped pessary for retroversions and retroflexions, and a cradle pessary for auteversions or flexions. These instruments were allowed to remain, often undisturbed, for several months if found to fit and act well. In cases where the uterus had become hardened in its flexed shape, the sound was employed once or twice a week to aid in the restoration. The conjoint occasional use of the sound and the use of a pessary constituted, with very few exceptions, the whole of the local mechanical treatment. In cases where the uterus was soft, and this was not unfrequently the case, in consequence of the very great feebleness of the system and the general want of tone, the sound was comparatively unnecessary, the uterus giving way to the prolonged action of the pessary and the positional treatment. The good results obtained by these comparatively mild procedures were in great part due to the complete rest which the patients enjoyed during the period of treatment, not less than to the great care bestowed on the restoration of the general strength. Various subsidiary measures were employed. The sponge bath, frictions of the skin, excessive care to prevent constipation, should be mentioned under this category. The principles kept in view were, briefly, to gently elevate the fundus uteri into its proper position, and to straighten the uterine canal, to avoid everything calculated to interfere VOL. XXII. 12 with this mechanical restoration, and to nourish the frame and strengthen and harden the tissues of the body generally by careful feeding, in the expectation--an expectation verified by practical results--that the uterus could th...