486 



PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 



[anno 1741. 



On the Case of a poor Woman who had a Foetus in her Abdomen for nine Years, 

 opened May 6, 1739. By IVilliam Bromfeild,* Surgeon. N° 460, p. 697. 



This woman, about 9 years since, was with child, and, at the expiration of 

 the usual time, was attempted to be delivered. The child was so far advanced 

 in the passage, that the midwife declared, that in less than 2 minutes the child 

 would be in the world ; but, on the woman's suddenly turning herself, the child 

 slipped from the midwife, and could not be found by her again. 



Previous to her being pregnant, she had been afflicted with the venereal 

 disease, and had had a violent discharge of a fetid matter from the uterus, and 

 was then under the care of Mr. Balgay, surgeon. She had been salivated once 

 or twice in our hospitals, but to no purpose. After the time of attempting to 

 deliver her, to the hour of her death, she had prodigious discharges of a fetid 

 gleet, and frequently indigested matter with blood from the uterus. There 

 appeared a tumour on the right side, which was moveable to the other, though 

 its attachment was chiefly to the right. She was troubled with a suppression of 

 urine, ever since the attempt of delivery, and within the last twelvemonth went 

 to stool in a cloth insensibly, and what faeces descended into the rectum, were 

 immediately discharged. She gradually wasted, from a hale lusty woman, till 

 she was reduced to a mere skeleton. 



On opening the body, the omentum was found entirely wasted; the peritonaeum 

 was greatly inflamed, and adhered to the subjacent tumour, which Mr. B. ex- 

 pected, not being acquainted with the case, to be a tumour of the same kind 

 he had before seen, which was chalky; but, on cutting into it, there appeared 

 the OS frontis, and, on proceeding farther, the arm, leg, and ribs, on the left 

 side, with some viscid matter in the interstices. It was seemingly contained in 

 a thick membranous cyst, which, on dissection, proved to be the containing 

 membranes of the foetus, contracted to the shape of the foetus in utero, and 

 gave the tumour an oval form. The situation of the foetus was in the concave 

 part of the right ilium, and by its cyst was attached to the intestines, colon, 

 and caecum. It had some vessels that ran on the surface of the cyst, that was 

 sent from the internal iliacs of the contrary side. By its pressure on the righ 

 ureter, it had hindered the descent of the urine, and had greatly enlarged both 

 the ureter and pelvis, of the right kidney, which was greatly distended with 

 urine, so that what descended into the bladder, must steal in by drops. 



The uterus and Fallopian tubes appeared of their usual size, only inflamed. 



* Mr. Bromfeild was a surgeon of considerable eminence, and author of two volumes of Chi- 

 rurgical Cases and Observations, and of some other tracts, such as a Treatise on the English Night- 

 shades ; a pamphlet on the Treatment of Persons under Inoculation, &c. It is said that the Lock- 

 Hospital was projected by him. Mr. B. was bom in 171-2, and died in 17P2. 



