Class I. 2. i. 14. OF IRRITATION. $* 



externally. Bandages on the limbs to keep more biood in them 

 for a time have been recommended. 



14. Abarth Spontanea. Some delicate ladies are perpetually 

 liable to fpontaneous abortion, before the third, or after the fev- 

 enth, month of geftation. From ibme of thefe patients I have 

 learnt, that they have awakened with a flight degree of difficult 

 refpiration, fo as to induce them to rife haftily up in bed ; and 

 have hence fufpected, that this was a tendency to a kind of aith- 

 ma, owing to a deficient abfcrption of blood in the extremities 

 of the pulmonary or bronchial veins •, and have concluded from 

 thence, that there was generally a deficiency of venous abforp- 

 tion ; and that this was the cccafion of their frequent abortion. 

 Which is further countenanced, where a great fanguinary dis- 

 charge precedes or follows the exclufion of the fetus. 



Mifcarriages are fGmetimes induced. by what is termed a re- 

 troverfion of the uterus, in which the fundus uteri is retroverted 

 and prefled down between the rectum and the vagina. This 

 can only occur in the firft or fecond month of geftation, and is 

 generally preceded by a difficulty of making water, and a confe- 

 quent tumour of the bladder ; a violent pain about the perinseum 

 or rectum is thus caufed, and a mifcarriage is liable to follow. 

 Draw off the urine with a catheter ; inject an enema with fixty 

 drops of tincture of opium, if it can be done. If it recurs fre- 

 quently after the mifcarriage, a wax candle, or a peffary, made 

 by rolling fome emplaftrurn de minio fpread on linen, may be 

 Introduced into the rectum, and worn as a comprefs to pre- 

 vent the return for a few days, till the parts recover their ftrength, 

 See London Medical Obfervations, Vol. IV. p. 388. and Dr. 

 Hunter's Tables of the Gravid Uterus. 



M. M. Opium, bark, chalybeates in fmali quantity. Change 

 to a warmer climate. I have directed with fuccefs in four cafes 

 half a grain of opium twice a day for a fortnight, and then a 

 whole grain twice a day during the whole geftation. One of 

 thefe patients took befides twenty grains of Peruvian bark for 

 feveral weeks. By thefe means being exactly and regularly per- 

 filled in, a new habit became eftabjifhed, and the ufual mifcar- 

 riages were prevented. 



Mifcarriages more frequently happen from eruptive fevers, and 

 from rheumatic ones, than from other inflammatory difeafes. I 

 faw a mod violent pleurify and hepatitis cured by repeated vene- 

 feclion about a week or ten days before parturition ; yet another 

 lady whom I attended, mifcarried at the end of the chicken pox, 

 with which her children were at the fame time affected. Mifcarri- 

 ages towards the termination of the fmall-pox are very frequent, 

 yet there have been a few inftances of children, who have been, 



