Researches in obstetrics / by J. Matthews Duncan.

  • Duncan, J. Matthews (James Matthews), 1826-1890.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches in obstetrics / by J. Matthews Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    63/204 (page 47)
    It is no main part of this chapter to enter on this sub- ject, but a few words may not be out of place. It would be foolish to imagine that any injurious in- fluence or the reverse could spring from the mere number of the pregnancy. A woman in a first may, and often does, have as fortunate a delivery as in any other. To ascribe to the number of pregnancy any potency would be to fall into the error of those students of the duration of labour who ascribe great potency to the mere addition of length to a labour. In the case of the law demonstrated in this part, and in the case also' of the law of the duration of labour, it appears to me that the source of the variations of mortality is to be looked for in the introduction of complications. I here use the word complications in a much wider sense than is generally ascribed to it, wishing it to imply injuries or injurious tendencies far slighter than those ordinarily classed as complications of labour. I have no doubt that all of these, however minute or slight, have their weight in giving proclivity to a fatal termination of the childbed. Puerperal fever may have its root ui an otherwise insignificant perineal laceration, as well as in a phlebitis or endometritis.^ In primiparse, as labour goes on, complications occur which are not nearly so liable to attack a woman in her next subsequent labours. These have their origin in various sources, chiefly in mechanical difficulties, and these often so slight as not to take the case from ^ On this subject see remarks by Schroeder. Schwangerschaft, Geburt. etc., S. 197.