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MEDICAL SECTION 



handicapped. As evidence of this you observe that 

 the average weight of the children was only 5f Ib. 



Distressing as it is to contemplate such a death- 

 roll and remember it. is the death-roll of the indoor 

 department of one hospital it is far more distressing 

 to know that this terrible complication of pregnancy 

 is a preventible disease. If these women had been 

 properly looked after during pregnancy hardly any of 

 them would have died, and only a very few children 

 would have succumbed. Amongst women of the 

 wealthy class, who are looked after during pregnancy 

 by specialists or careful family practitioners, eclampsia 

 is very rare, and especially rare in its graver forms. 



(2) Albuminuria. But I can illustrate this best 

 by considering the other toxaemia of pregnancy, 

 albuminuria. Now albuminuria (albumen in the 

 urine) is almost always present before the eclamptic 

 seizure. It is, of course, only a symptom, but in most 

 cases it may be safely referred to as an early stage 

 of the toxaemia which at a more advanced stage is 

 associated with eclamptic convulsions. If you look at 

 the figures for albuminuria you will at once be struck 

 by the fact that both the maternal mortality and the 

 infantile mortality are very much lower. During the 

 same ten years, 1901-10, we had 121 cases of albumin- 

 uria. Amongst these cases there was a maternal 

 mortality of 7 or 5*8 per cent., and an infantile 

 mortality of 33 or 27*2 per cent. 



Now what does this prove? It proves that if 

 the pregnant women were treated while they have 

 albuminuria, and especially if they were treated early, 

 we obstetricians could save a great number of 

 maternal and infantile lives. And mark you, we 

 could save for the State the most valuable mothers, 

 the young mothers who, if saved, could produce 

 numbers of healthy children. 



It is quite unnecessary to labour this point and 

 quite unnecessary to give more statistics. Every 



