CLASS I. 2. i. 14- OF IRRITATION. 59 



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

 for a time have been recommended. 



14. Abortlo Spontanea. Some delicate ladies are perpetual 1 .-; 

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

 enrh, month of geitation. From tome of thefe patients I have 

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

 refpiration, fo as to induce them to rife haitily up in bed 5 and 

 have hence fufpedted, that this was a tendency to a kii- 

 ma, owing to a deficient abforption of blood in ti 

 of the pulmonary or bronchial veins ; and have conclu 

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

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

 Which is further countenanced, where a great fanjjuinary dif- 

 charge precedes or follows the exclufion of the fetus. 



Mifcarriages are fometimes induced by what is termed a re- 

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

 and prefled down between the rectum and the vagina. 

 can only occur in the fir ft or fecond month of geitation, and is 

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

 quent tumour of the bladder ; a violent pain about the per'uueum 

 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 peiTary, made 

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

 introduced into the rectum, and worn as a comprefs to 

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

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

 Hunter's Tables of the Gravid Uterus. 



M. M. Opium, bark, chalybeates in fmall 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- 

 lifted in, a new habit became eitablilhed, 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 moft violent pleurify and hepatitis cured by repeated vene- 

 fection 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 inll-mces of children, who have been 



barn 



