Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [77]
made a complete recovery. Thomas Cowley describes the case of a negro woman who, being unable to bear the pains of labor any longer, took a sharp knife and made a deep incision in her belly--deep enough to wound the buttocks of her child, and extracted the child, placenta and all. A negro horse-doctor was called, who sewed the wound up in a manner similar to the way dead bodies are closed at the present time.
Barker gives the instance of a woman who, on being abused by her husband after a previous tedious labor, resolved to free herself of the child, and slyly made an incision five inches long on the left side of the abdomen with a weaver's knife. When Barker arrived the patient was literally drenched with blood and to all appearance dead. He extracted a dead child from the abdomen and bandaged the mother, who lived only forty hours. In his discourses on Tropical Diseases Moseley speaks of a young negress in Jamaica who opened her uterus and extracted therefrom a child which lived six days; the woman recovered. Barker relates another case in Rensselaer County, N.Y., in which the incision was made with the razor, the woman likewise recovering. There is an interesting account of a poor woman at Prischtina, near the Servian frontier, who, suffering greatly from the pains of labor, resolved to open her abdomen and uterus. She summoned a neighbor to sew up the incision after she had extracted the child, and at the time of report, several months later, both the mother and child were doing well.
Madigan cites the case of a woman of thirty-four, in her seventh confinement, who, while temporarily insane, laid open her abdomen with a razor, incised the uterus, and brought out a male child. The abdominal wound was five inches long, and extended from one inch above the umbilicus straight downward. There was little or no bleeding and the uterus was firmly contracted. She did not see a physician for three hours. The child was found dead and, with the placenta, was lying by her side. The neighbors were so frightened by the awful sight that they ran away, or possibly the child might have been saved by ligature of the funis. Not until the arrival of the clergyman was anything done, and death ultimately ensued.
A most wonderful case of endurance of pain and heroism was one occurring in Italy, which attracted much European comment at the time. A young woman, illegitimately pregnant, at full term, on March 28th, at dawn, opened her own abdomen on the left side with a common knife such as is generally used in kitchens. The wound measured five inches, and was directed obliquely outward and downward. She opened the uterus in the same direction, and endeavored to extract the fetus. To expedite the extraction, she drew out an arm and amputated it, and finding the extraction still difficult, she cut off the head and completely emptied the womb, including the placenta. She bound a tight bandage around her body and hid the fetus in a straw mattress. She then dressed herself and attended to her domestic duties. She afterward mounted a cart and went into the city of Viterbo, where she showed her sister a cloth bathed in blood as menstrual proof that she was not pregnant. On returning home, having walked five hours, she was seized with an attack of vomiting and fainted. The parents called Drs. Serpieri and Baliva, who relate the case. Thirteen hours had elapsed from the infliction of the wound, through which the bulk of the intestines had been protruding for the past six hours. The abdomen was irrigated, the toilet made, and after the eighteenth day the process of healing was well progressed, and the woman made a recovery after her plucky efforts to hide her shame.
Cases like the foregoing excite no more interest than those on record in which an abdominal section has been accidental, as, for instance, by cattle-horns, and the fetus born through the wound. Zuboldie speaks of a case in which a fetus was born from the wound made by a bull's horn in the mother's abdomen. Deneux describes a case in which the wound made by the horn was not sufficiently
Barker gives the instance of a woman who, on being abused by her husband after a previous tedious labor, resolved to free herself of the child, and slyly made an incision five inches long on the left side of the abdomen with a weaver's knife. When Barker arrived the patient was literally drenched with blood and to all appearance dead. He extracted a dead child from the abdomen and bandaged the mother, who lived only forty hours. In his discourses on Tropical Diseases Moseley speaks of a young negress in Jamaica who opened her uterus and extracted therefrom a child which lived six days; the woman recovered. Barker relates another case in Rensselaer County, N.Y., in which the incision was made with the razor, the woman likewise recovering. There is an interesting account of a poor woman at Prischtina, near the Servian frontier, who, suffering greatly from the pains of labor, resolved to open her abdomen and uterus. She summoned a neighbor to sew up the incision after she had extracted the child, and at the time of report, several months later, both the mother and child were doing well.
Madigan cites the case of a woman of thirty-four, in her seventh confinement, who, while temporarily insane, laid open her abdomen with a razor, incised the uterus, and brought out a male child. The abdominal wound was five inches long, and extended from one inch above the umbilicus straight downward. There was little or no bleeding and the uterus was firmly contracted. She did not see a physician for three hours. The child was found dead and, with the placenta, was lying by her side. The neighbors were so frightened by the awful sight that they ran away, or possibly the child might have been saved by ligature of the funis. Not until the arrival of the clergyman was anything done, and death ultimately ensued.
A most wonderful case of endurance of pain and heroism was one occurring in Italy, which attracted much European comment at the time. A young woman, illegitimately pregnant, at full term, on March 28th, at dawn, opened her own abdomen on the left side with a common knife such as is generally used in kitchens. The wound measured five inches, and was directed obliquely outward and downward. She opened the uterus in the same direction, and endeavored to extract the fetus. To expedite the extraction, she drew out an arm and amputated it, and finding the extraction still difficult, she cut off the head and completely emptied the womb, including the placenta. She bound a tight bandage around her body and hid the fetus in a straw mattress. She then dressed herself and attended to her domestic duties. She afterward mounted a cart and went into the city of Viterbo, where she showed her sister a cloth bathed in blood as menstrual proof that she was not pregnant. On returning home, having walked five hours, she was seized with an attack of vomiting and fainted. The parents called Drs. Serpieri and Baliva, who relate the case. Thirteen hours had elapsed from the infliction of the wound, through which the bulk of the intestines had been protruding for the past six hours. The abdomen was irrigated, the toilet made, and after the eighteenth day the process of healing was well progressed, and the woman made a recovery after her plucky efforts to hide her shame.
Cases like the foregoing excite no more interest than those on record in which an abdominal section has been accidental, as, for instance, by cattle-horns, and the fetus born through the wound. Zuboldie speaks of a case in which a fetus was born from the wound made by a bull's horn in the mother's abdomen. Deneux describes a case in which the wound made by the horn was not sufficiently