382 DYSTOCIA. 



be injurious. The tampon, like all important therapeutic resour- 

 ces, is a weapon of protection in the hands of a skilful practitioner, but 

 it may become a murderous one in those of an ignorant person. For 

 example, it would be imprudent to make use of it at the commence- 

 ment of a flooding, before the symptoms of plethora have been dis- 

 sipated, or where the blood is being effused within the interior of 

 the membranes with the uterus in a state of inertia; for in such a 

 condition it could not fail to augment the excitement, or by retain- 

 ing the blood in the womb, favor the indefinite distension of the 

 parietes of that organ. Nevertheless, it has not as yet been very- 

 positively demonstrated, that even here it would not be more fre- 

 quently useful than hurtful; reasoning, which accords with a pretty 

 considerable number of facts, leads me to believe, along with M. 

 Chevreul, that it affords, perhaps, one of the surest means of forcing 

 the uterus to contract, or arouse it from its lethargy; this is the pro- 

 perty, even, which renders it redoubtable where we are fearful of fa- 

 cilitating the expulsion of the ovum, and which makes it improper to 

 resort to it until afier we have ascertained the inefficacy of other 

 modes of treatment. 



883. It is composed in very various ways: many persons content 

 themselves with filling the vagina with tow, lint, old linen, sponge 

 &c. Dewees says it is never necessary to carry the tampon as far 

 as the OS uteri; there are some who prefer a small baff. or sort of 

 purse, filled with astringent substances: but the simplest method, 

 which also is that adopted by M. Desormeaux, consists in making 

 a kind of sac with fine linen well greased with cerate, and which is 

 introduced empty as far as the os tincae, to be afterwards filled with 

 little rows of lint or tow, or some such substance, and then secured 

 with a T bandage. The oil in which Burns advises us to soak the 

 tampon appears to me to be of no other use but to favor its in- 

 troduction. Vinegar, and oxycrate, recommended by others, are 

 of less doubtful value, although their styptic action is soon annihi- 

 lated by the coagula, and by the flow of the blood; moreover, it 

 is a mechanical barrier and not a pharmaceutic substance by 

 which we attempt to oppose the hemorrhagy. It is a real stop- 

 per, which, by closing up the passage to the blood, compels it to 

 coagulate by little and little, and as it becomes concrete, to compress 

 and shut up the exhalent orifices that furnish the fluid; on the other 

 hand, by its quality as a foreign body, it excites the cervix, and chan- 

 ges the vitality of the womb, whose contractility it arouses, whose 

 reaction it recalls, to such a degree as soon to occasion the expulsion 

 of the ovum. 



If it is to succeed, the blood ceases to flow from the vulva, the 



