Disorders of the special senses usually occur in the course of pregnancy as symptoms of acute or chronic Bright's disease. Amblyopia, amaurosis, ringing in the ears, sudden deafness, loss of taste and smell, may be developed under the influence of renal inadequacy before or after the occurrence of puerperal convulsions. Apart from the disorders of the special senses dependent upon lesions of the kidney, disturbances of vision are of chief clinical interest.
Amblyopia, hemeralopia, and color-blindness are occasionally observed as the result of nutritive disturbances in the retina. Nyctalopia, Spiegelberg says, is not recorded in the literature of the subject.
The PROGNOSIS is favorable as a rule. The disorders of vision usually disappear during the puerperium, and evince no tendency to recurrence.
Generous diet, iron, and a tonic plan of treatment are indicated.
II. THE PECULIARITIES OF CERTAIN ACCIDENTAL ACUTE AND CHRONIC DISEASES OCCURRING IN THE COURSE OF PREGNANCY.
The older obstetricians believed not only that pregnant women possessed a certain immunity from accidental diseases, but also that the course of such affections was favorably modified by gestation. Modern research has demonstrated the groundless nature of this belief. It is an established fact that pregnancy confers upon the individual no immunity from the disorders to which the non-gravid woman is liable. Moreover, such accessory diseases are usually aggravated by pregnancy, and, in turn, exercise an unfavorable influence upon gestation, frequently leading to its interruption.
Acute Infectious Diseases.
Of all the so-called accessory diseases occurring in the course of pregnancy, the acute infectious diseases are of the gravest clinical significance. These diseases are peculiarly dangerous complications for two reasons:
I. They have a marked tendency to cause the death of the foetus and the interruption of pregnancy, when the loss of blood and the muscular exertion consequent upon the expulsion of the product of conception from the uterine cavity seriously imperil the mother's life.