Parturition

“ There are certain accidents of parturition so grave in their nature, and attended by symptoms so alarming and urgent that no nurse would attempt to treat the patient except under the direction of a physician. ”

“ Those women of savage nations who bear children without pain live much in the open air, take much exercise, and are physically active and healthy to a degree greatly beyond their more civilized sisters. These instances tend directly to prove that parturition is likely to be painless in proportion as the mother is physically perfect and in a sound condition of health. They certainly tend even more [Pg 23] strongly to prove that pain is not an absolute necessity attendant on parturition. ”

“ There are however other causes, which render parturition more dangerous to the ladies of high life; such as their greater general debility from neglect of energetic exercise, their inexperience of the variations of cold and heat, and their seclusion from fresh air. ”

“ In two cases of parturition, both of young women with their first child, I have seen general convulsions occur from excess of voluntary exertion, as above described, instead of the actions of particular muscles, which ought to have been excited by sensation for the exclusion of the fetus. ”

“ The premature expulsion of the product of conception before it is viable out of the womb. Strictly speaking, a parturition in which the offspring is so far matured as to be viable is a premature parturition, while if it is non-viable it is an abortion. ”

“ Medical men may oppose, for a time, the superinduction of anæsthesia in parturition, but they will oppose it in vain; for certainly our patients themselves and their friends will force the use of it upon the profession. ”

“ Since then the process of parturition, as described by Fabricius, does not apply to all animals, but to women alone, and this not universally, but only where the labour is premature, and, as it were, forced, we must regard it not so much as a description of a natural as of a preternatural and hurried delivery, in fact, of an abortion. ”

“ Obscene anecdotes and direful childbirth experiences should be avoided. During the entire process of parturition, the patient should have the advantage of pleasant, comfortable and sanative surroundings. Her mind should be free from care and anxiety. The best in the house should be appropriated to her use. ”

“ It does not, however, always happen that the parturition is effected with such ease. Cases of false presentation, of enlarged fœtus, of debility in the mother, often render it difficult and dangerous. ”

“ Matters being thus, one may conjecture, according to the time, and each additional period of the diseases, as they proceed to a crisis. And in women, after parturition, the crises proceed agreeably to the same ratio. ”

“ Varied as the cases of parturition are, if the principle is kept in view, an intelligent mind will supply the deficiency. And a female will be conducted through a lingering labor with much less suffering, and much less exhaustion than under more unguarded treatment. ”

“ For in case her wishes are not granted there is a probability of the child becoming deformed and defective. She should be kept happy and contented, should wear white clothes and ornaments, and avoid disagreeable sights and smells, and sexual and other excitements ; should take easily digestible food ; should neither remain hungry nor eat too much. She is enjoined not to touch a dirty, ugly, or defective woman, and is advised not to live in a lonely house or to have her bed very high.
Parturition generally takes place after nine calendar months, when the foetus is fully developed. ”

“ They propagate unnecessary follies respecting the peculiar dangers of certain days. And if the patient be dejected, they rally them, and [Pg 23] often urge the necessity of premature rising to dinner or tea, to promote cheerfulness. Within the last few weeks, though spirits had been decidedly prohibited in a case of first parturition, as soon as the practitioner had left, the nurse so boldly urged some brandy, that the lady could not refuse compliance. The obtrusiveness and loquacity of this person very materially affected the recovery of an interesting woman. ”

“ To those who will commit themselves to this course of life, patiently and persistently carrying it out through the period of gestation, the possibilities of attaining a healthy, natural, painless parturition will be remarkably increased. ”

“ Persons whose minds have been little [Pg 22] cultivated, are apt to seek undue commendation, and to gain by improper means the confidence of their employer. However well disposed and well informed the lady, perhaps her knowledge of parturition may be circumscribed by her personal experience. ”

“ The ejectio feminis is another process in some respects similar to strangury, as belonging to the same sensible canal of the urethra, and by exciting into action the accelerator muscles; but in the strangury these muscles are excited into action by painful sensation, and in the ejection of the semen by pleasureable sensation.
12. Parturitio. Parturition is not a disease, it is a natural process, but is more frequently unfortunate in high life than amongst the middle class of females ”

“ A woman after parturition must during forty days beware of using vessels of wood or earth, and is not to cross the threshold of the house. She is then to wash her head: during all this time her husband is not to approach her. ”

“ How inexplicable are these facts on the ordinary view of creation! Why should the brain be enclosed in a box composed of such numerous and such extraordinary shaped pieces of bone? As Owen has remarked, the benefit derived from the yielding of the separate pieces in the act of parturition of mammals, will by no means explain the same construction in the skulls of birds. ”

“ My anxiety was somewhat abated by the statements I received from ladies whom you had attended, by hearing the great relief they had received from your plan of treatment; and I am happy to have it in my power to corroborate their testimony.
No one but those who have experienced it can conceive or describe the immense [Pg 32] alleviation of suffering it produces, without in the least taking away the power of consciousness; and when baby was born I did not feel the least pain or inconvenience, and did not know that it was born till you assured me it was. ”

“ I consider the process you use in midwifery cases to be, without any exception, the greatest boon which has been, or ever can be, given to woman, and will, I trust, be appreciated as such. I have received the wonderful benefit of it myself, as well as witnessing it in two other cases; one an extremely difficult one, where I am fully convinced that the patient must, in all human probability, have lost her life, had it not been for your beautiful process, whereby she was totally relieved from pain, which must in her case have exhausted nature. ”

“ That when a woman is delivered without suffering pain, although she shall have had inflammation after each of six previous labours, the prevention of the suffering will have the effect of preventing the usual inflammation.
5th. That by preventing the suffering of labour, the woman does not lose her strength, and always has a speedy recovery.
[Pg 20]
CASES.
Of the following Letters from Patients which I have selected for publication, six relate to cases of first labour. ”

“ The recollection of this, will often oppose a barrier to temptation, and prevent its clinging with fatal tenacity to the heart. If the vanity of the world allure thee, reflect upon its ingratitude, and thou wilt be little desirous of becoming bound to it. And though thou shouldest dedicate thy whole life to its service, it will permit thee to carry off nothing but thy sins. This may be exemplified by the fable of the partridge. A partridge, anxious for the safety of her young, on the approach of a sportsman, ran before him, feigning herself wounded, in order to draw him from her nest. ”

“ Hold your pain and suffering from your appendix operation, and disappointment because you can’t be bridesmaid at your chum’s wedding, up close to your eyes, and you cannot see anything else. They crowd the whole field of vision. Look at the world from the eyes of a spoiled woman of wealth who for twenty years has had husband, friends, and servants obedient to her every whim. She has grown selfish and demanding. What she has asked for, hitherto, has been immediately forthcoming. Now she is ill, and she naturally considers the doctors and nurses mere agents to secure her relief from discomfort. ”

“ Paralysis, or Palsy, when occurring as a complication of spermatorrhea, may be preceded by an attack of apoplexy, in which the patient loses consciousness, and lays in a condition of profound stupor for a time, and on recovery from his unconscious state, finds himself unable to use one or more of his limbs, or the disability and loss of power, which may also be accompanied by more or less loss of sensation, may come on gradually, without any premonition or marked manifestation of its approach. ”

“ If he find himself subject to any peculiar corporeal infirmity, hereditary tendency to disease, overbearing propensities towards indulgence, or excess, unbalanced passions, or morbid mental obliquity, he will be studiously solicitous, that the other party shall not be laboring under similar disqualifications. ”

“ The first step towards a deliverance is, that we confess, with a feeling sense, our extreme baseness and ingratitude, and our weakness and total incapacity of doing anything of ourselves towards our recovery; but we have a physician infinitely tender and powerful. To him then we must continually lay open our distress, and with deep compunction display our miseries before his holy eyes, earnestly striving by this dumb eloquence to move him to pity; exposing to him that we whom he loveth still as the work of his hands, as the price of his blood, lie ingulfed in unspeakable miseries. ”

“ Your own reaction did that. For outside things or people cannot damage what we are in ourselves. The way we respond to them does the harm. When you can control your expression of anger and humiliation, and substitute for your intense feeling a desire that such a patient may learn that pain is often the gateway to healing; that some respect for women may be kindled in him, so that eventually such an outburst in the ward may be impossible for him or for anyone who heard it ”

“ Undoubtedly, the trial is great, but if a sacrifice be required, let the husband forbear the gratification of passions which will assuredly be the means of developing in his delicate wife symptoms that may speedily hurry her into a premature grave. Before she has recovered from the effects of bearing, nursing, and rearing one child, ere she has regained proper tone and vigor of body and mind, she is unexpectedly overtaken, surprised by the manifestation of symptoms which again indicate pregnancy. Children thus begotten are not apt to be hardy and long-lived. ”

“ In estimating suffering, physical or mental, to fail to take into account a more important factor—the merciful paralysis or partial paralysis of any center of sensibility—that is insistently assaulted. ”

“ Thank God, that is now behind me. And the suffering is a thing of the past. I was freed from my pain by such a strange remedy; we have preserved it and given it to all of our family. Later, it may do our children good. ”

“ From this miserable condition I desire to protect you, and I would ask you to {528} take this advice deeply to heart: do not bear yourself as one who is condemned; as one who, affected by a progressive, incurable disease, will soon fall a victim to paralysis. ”

“ By attending to the simple suggestion of nature, namely, abstinence, cleanliness, and rest, a cure is effected; but where neglected, or should either party be unfaithful to the marriage vow, the disease becomes magnified, and extended to, mayhap, innocent parties. ”

“ Parton answered; "but when a man's veins hold blood that saturates and leaves no stain, what are we to think?"
I confessed that this was a point beyond me, and, by mutual consent, we dropped the subject. ”

“ At a season of distress, and amidst the solemn scenes of sickness and death, how greatly is the trial aggravated by the presence of one who is not only ignorant of her duties, but is without any moral or spiritual power to sustain and guide her in them. ”

“ What excuse therefore, or what pardon shall we obtain, if when the body is sick, and money must be expended on its behalf, and physicians called in, and much anguish endured, we make this so much a matter of our care (though what might result from that sickness could be no great injury to us) , and yet treat the soul with neglect? ”

“ In the mean time, the Disease gathers Strength, and the Child’s Wilfulness with it; and the little ungovernable Patient falls an untimely Victim to the former Mismanagement of the mistakenly fond Parents, and its own present Unruliness. To see a fond Father, in Spite of the Impotence of Tears, so general to his Sex, weeping over his Child, his Heir, his only Hope of Joy, and vainly entreating him, whom he might command, to take an easy Remedy! ”

“ COACTUS—SCELOTYRBE FESTINANS.
It has been seen in the preceding history of the disease, and in the accompanying cases, that certain affections, the tremulous agitations, and the almost invincible propensity to run, when wishing only to walk, each of which has been considered by nosologists as distinct diseases, appear to be pathognomonic symptoms of this malady. To determine in which of these points of view these affections ought to be regarded, an examination into their nature, and an inquiry into the opinions of preceding writers respecting them, seem necessary to be attempted. ”