Mother, Nurse and Infant / A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies.

by S. P. Sackett

It is well also, sometimes, to place another pledget of cotton between the labia, that can be removed when the woman urinates. When all is well crowded into place, the tampon should be retained by a broad T bandage, covered by oiled silk when it rests against the vulva.

Generally the whole should be removed within from eighteen to twenty-four hours, and hot water or some cleansing injection used, and the tampon be soon reapplied.

If opium or morphine is used with the tampon, as it is sometimes when there is considerable pain, first dip the cotton in glycerine, and then sprinkle the narcotic on the outside.

If borax, tannin, alum, acetate of lead, sulphate of zinc, chlorate of potash, or carbolic acid is used, I think it well to envelop the undissolved drug in cotton, put it in the middle of the tampon, and let it dissolve slowly in the vagina. It is best when thus applied to let the whole suppository remain as much as forty-eight hours; it should, however, be removed when it seems to cause smarting or excoriations.

The accompanying cut (Fig. [13]) is inserted to show what is the knee-chest or genu-pectoral position, as well as to exhibit the retroversion of the uterus. Note that in this position the hips are elevated, and remember that it does not suffice to get on the hands and knees if the haunches are low down on the legs and ankles.

RETROFLEXION AND ANTIFLEXION.

Fig. 14. Retroflexion of the uterus.

The condition known as retroflexion consists of a bending back of the uterus at a point where the neck joins the body, so that the fundus is found between the cervix and rectum, the os uteri being in the natural position.

In antiflexion we find the fundus pressing upon the bladder. These displacements are rare in virgins. The false membrane formed in peritonitis is now and then the cause of these deviations, when there is superadded such causes as are mentioned for prolapsis. The symptoms of RETROFLEXION are usually a dull, weary and constant backache, which is more marked about the sacral region, pains that shoot down the thighs or the groins, and a frequent desire to go to stool, although nothing comes away. The passage of a motion that is not at all constipated aggravates the pain and aching; sexual intercourse is attended with suffering, and is not followed by pregnancy; and just before and after the monthly periods there is so much tenderness that sexual connection cannot be tolerated.