Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century by Henry Ebenezer Handerson
page 47 of 105 (44%)
page 47 of 105 (44%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
In the department of the diseases of women chapters are devoted to
amenorrhea, menorrhagia, hysteria (_suffocatio matricis_), prolapse, ulceration, abscess, cancer, dropsy and "ventosity" of the uterus (physometra). In the allied department of obstetrics we find chapters on the signs of conception, on the urine in pregnant women, on difficult labor, prolapsus uteri, retention of the placenta, post partum hemorrhage, afterpains, and the oedema of pregnancy. The causes of difficult labor, according to Gilbert, are malposition, dropsy, immoderate size and death of the fetus, debility of the uterus and obstruction of the maternal passages. Malpositions are to be corrected by the hand of the midwife (_obstetrix_). Adjuvant measures are hot baths, poultices, inunctions, fumigations and sternutatories, and the use of certain herbs. In the departments of general medicine not as yet entirely appropriated by specialists it will suffice to mention scrofula, pleurisy and pneumonia, hemoptysis, empyema, phthisis, cardiac affections, diseases of the stomach, liver and spleen, diarrhoea and dysentery, intestinal worms, dropsy, jaundice, cancer, rheumatism and gout, small-pox, measles, leprosy and hydrophobia, all of which claim more or less attention. Peripneumonia and pleurisy are both inflammations of the chest, the former affecting the lungs, the latter the diaphragm and the pellicle which lines the ribs. The prominent symptoms of both diseases are pain in the chest or side, cough and fever and dyspnoea. Accidents or sequelae are hemoptysis, empyema and phthisis. |
|