A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4

by Unknown

An active general treatment must accompany these local measures, but upon this I will not dwell, as it is the same which must be followed in all cases of septic poisoning. Quinine is the main stay, and in addition to the remedies in general use ergot is here indicated to further contraction and expulsion of offensive particles and close the capillary and lymphatic canals to the possibility of infection.

AFTER-TREATMENT.—It cannot be too often repeated that the danger resulting from abortion is not the immediate or primary one, but the secondary, even in case of profuse hemorrhage; it is that of anæmia, of general debility, a slow getting up. After abortion we have conditions analogous to those of the puerperium, the dangers of infection, of septicæmia, the greater liability of the system to surrounding influences, epidemic, infectious, malarial; but even greater than after labor at term is that of incomplete involution with its chain of insidious consequences. In the main, the danger of abortion lies in the lightness of the affection and the indifference to after-treatment. Involution is more questionable than after labor at term, and yet time and opportunity are rarely given nature to accomplish this process of restitution. If the abortion is passed easily, the patient rarely keeps her bed, pays little or no attention to the occurrence, certainly none to her getting up, and subinvolution, by far the most frequent sequence to abortion, follows. Abortion is altogether the most prolific cause of uterine disease, in consequence of the indifference with which it is treated, not only by the patient, but by her physician. With the expulsion of the ovum and the cessation of hemorrhage the case is considered finished; even if a physician is called, proper time is not given for restitution of the parts. Although by far less is to be accomplished by the retrograde metamorphosis than after labor at full term, the parts being not so fully developed, they are not so thoroughly prepared for this restitution: retrograde metamorphosis has not been initiated with the inauguration of the abortion, as it has with the inauguration of labor at term. In the latter fatty degeneration is in progress; the tissues are prepared for the restorative process which is to follow: not so in case of abortion; hence nature must be assisted, must be allowed to perform those functions which are necessary to a healthy restoration of the sexual organs.

In the great mass of cases it is not strictly medical attention which is necessary, medical treatment, but mere ordinary care, precaution, and cleanliness on the part of the patient herself, so as to assist the efforts of nature: a week's rest in bed with healthy nutritious diet should be accorded every woman who has aborted, and this must be followed by at least one more week of quiet and confinement to the room, and not until a month after the accident has occurred should the patient resume her ordinary vocations.

I will not enter into the details of the after-treatment, as it is identical with that after labor at term. No decided treatment is called for unless demanded by symptoms peculiar to individual cases, yet ergot, quinine, and tonics are in place, and the same antiseptic precautions must be observed which are so highly appreciated in the lying-in room.

The patient must be kept in a recumbent position, the room quiet, and visitors excluded; a bed-pan must be used; the food must be easily digestible and nutritious; prepared tow or salicylated or borated cotton should be used in preference to the old-fashioned cloth to receive the discharge, and this must be changed with sufficient frequency: the parts must be washed with a lukewarm antiseptic wash, and vaginal injections of the same given as cleanliness demands, at least once a day; these should be hot (110°-120°) to further contraction. Corrosive sublimate 1:2000, carbolic acid 2:100, or boracic acid or borate of soda, serves a good purpose; intra-uterine injections are called for only in case of putrid or offensive discharge.

After the third or fourth day it is well to add an astringent, such as alum or tannin, to the hot vaginal douche, a teaspoonful to the quart, beginning with less, as some are very sensitive to these remedies, and increasing the strength if desirable.

Iron and chinine are serviceable in aiding the system to regain its tone and in guarding against zymotic and malarial influences, to which it is more subject in this weakened condition. Ergot is here in its proper place: a three-grain pill of the aqueous extract should be given, at least during the first week, three times a day; I prefer this to the fluid extract in common use, which is nauseating to many. This drug, so much abused during progressing abortion and in labor before the contents of the uterus are expelled, answers an excellent purpose at this stage, and, together with the hot, astringent douche, may be relied upon to prevent subinvolution.

I can but repeat that the after-treatment should be that of the lying-in room after labor at term, modified according to circumstances, but never to be neglected, not even after the most simple cases. We must remember that it is indifference under these circumstances, under-estimation of the accident, which leads to years of suffering, by which subinvolution so insidiously destroys a vigorous constitution.

Rest, peace of mind, and quiet of body should, together with antiseptic precautions and tonic treatment, follow every abortion, intensified according to the severity of the accident. The two most important, and at the same time most neglected, features in the after-treatment of abortion, both of which are called for in even the most ordinary cases, are rest and cleanliness—rest, quiet of body and mind, to afford the proper conditions for the efforts of nature toward restitution and involution; cleanliness, antisepsis, to prevent external interference with this process and to guard the lacerated cavity of the womb, which offers so ready a receptacle for septic elements, against the dangers which threaten from without and so frequently bring about the rapidly-fatal termination of an apparently simple abortion.