FLOODING. 377 



pregnancy, and the ability of the prescribing attendant. In the 

 early stages of pregnancy it is rare for the woman not to be saved, 

 for abortion is nearly an invariable consequence of it. In the last 

 three months, on the contrary, the life of the child is pretty frequently 

 preserved, while that of the mother is exposed to much greater risks. 

 Upon this subject it may be established as a general rule, that for 

 the woman, the danger is the greater as the pregnancy is the more 

 advanced, and that the converse is true in respect to the child. 

 External hemorrhage is always less redoutable than internal; be- 

 cause in the latter, the evil, when discovered, is often beyond the 

 resources of art, while it is easy to recognise the former from its 

 very commencement. Where the flow takes place from tlie cord 

 or placenta, the life of the foetus is more seriously menaced than that 

 of the mother, and vice versa as to uterine hemorrhage, properly so 

 called. 



The danger is not to be estimated by the quantity of blood that is 

 lost, but rather by the effect produced by it upon the system in gene- 

 ral. There are women, who, other things being equal, are led to the 

 verge of the grave by the loss of a pound of blood, while others lose 

 double or triple the quantity without being seriously incommoded by 

 it; and it is not requisite for me to say that those who are strong, 

 sanguine, and robust, suffer from it less than such as are lymphatic, 

 weakly and anemic. 



874. Even although we should be so fortunate as to allay the 

 storm, and prevent the death of the patient in a case of profuse flood- 

 ing, there would still be reason to dread relapses that would become 

 more and more dangerous, general or local infiltrations, chronic in- 

 flammations of the womb, peritoneum, pleura, and pericardium, and 

 nervous affections of all sorts; as to the dangers of the moment they 

 are estimated by the severity of the symptoms under notice at the 

 time. While ever the debility is not great, while the pulse retains 

 some strength and hardness, and the color of the skin and features 

 of the countenance remains without any too evident alteration, the 

 flooding need not excite our alarm; on the contrary, there is not a 

 moment to lose where the face grows pale, the extremities become 

 cold, the sight dim, the pulse weaker, tremulous, and irregular; final- 

 ly, but little hope remains where lypothymia, syncope and convul- 

 sions supervene. 



875. Notwithstanding that the death of the foetus is one of the or- 

 dinary consequences of hemorrhage occurring in the four or five first 

 months of pregnancy, and that at later stages it becomes most gene- 

 rally necessary to empty the uterus, it would however be wrong to 

 conclude that a happier termination of it can never be obtained. 



33* 



