On the nature, signs, and treatment of childbed fevers : in a series of letters addressed to his class / By Charles D. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Charles D. (Charles Delucena), 1792-1869.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature, signs, and treatment of childbed fevers : in a series of letters addressed to his class / By Charles D. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    cessor himself. In none of the cases is any memorandum to be found of the treatment, except, indeed, where the author says that the extremities could not be kept warm; whence I conclude that attempts must have been made, though vainly, to restore the temperature. Galen's comment on the case before given, that of Dromeades's wife, is too short to be of any interest. 21. Celsus, who speaks of the uterus and some of its morbid states, has left us nothing at all, worthy of citation, upon our par- ticular topic. Aretasus was a Greek physician who flourished about Anno Domini 150, which is some ten years later than Galen, which leaves us to suppose he may have been a contemporary prac- titioner. In the whole of his eight very dull books, there does not appear the least notice of the disorders we are studying, so that, as far as concerns that particular interest, he might as well have never been born. The epoch of Aretasus is a disputed point, however, for some persons would make him a physician during the reign of Augustus, while others carry him down to Adrian and Severus. Oribasius was a voluminous writer who lived in Julian's age, and who accompanied that emperor in his expeditions, and is said to have assisted in establishing him on the throne. The 112th chapter of the 4th book might, a priori, be supposed likely to contain his views on those disorders that attack women in their confinement, for it is headed: Ad vulvas inflammationem, dolores, ulcerationes, mordicationes, pruritus sinus muliebris, ad eandem procidentem, et item ad ea omnia quas ad conceptiones et foetus pertinent. This entire chapter, however, consists in only thirty- seven lines of a double-column page. It has not even a reference to the disorders that follow childbirth. The 50th chapter, 9th book of the Synopses, De uteri inflammatione, is utterly jejune, and even childish, except that he advises the woman to be bled at the arm on the third day, provided certain puerile methods indicated by him should fail of a cure. Aetius, author of the Tetrabiblon, was of the fifth century. When these works of Aetius came out translated by Janus Cor- narus, in 1541, they were highly applauded and eagerly sought after, but I presume few persons now look into them, except wiffh the hope of catching a reflection of the medical opinions of that