In scanning medical journals of the nineteenth century I have come across a number of bizarre anecdotal clinical reports. None, however, has yet equaled the case cited below.
The following case is probably unique in the medical literature. My memory is refreshed from notes taken by DR. MEANS, who saw the case with me in consultation.
Mrs. P, age 34, the mother of seven children and near full term in her eighth pregnancy, on November 16th. was gored by an infuriated ox. The horn of the beast entered at the anterior superior spinous process of the ilium, and made a rent extending to the umbilicus, and involving both the abdominal parietes and the walls of the uterus. The child was extruded through the wound in half an hour after the occurrence of the accident. When I arrived on the scene, I found the child fully delivered but remaining attached to the cord, which I ligatured and severed. There being no dilatation of either the os uteri or the vagina, I delivered the placenta through the rent and applied a bandage. The patient was almost lifeless from hemorrhage and shock, and I placed her on morphine and whisky. On the following day she was still alive and DR. MEANS was called in consultation at 9:30 a.m. The small intestines escaped from the wound on removal of the bandage, and were returned with much difficulty. The wound was now closed with interrupted sutures, a carbolized compress was applied, and the morphine and whisky continued internally. At 5:00 p.m. of the same day I found the pulse 130 and respiration 25 per minute; the abdomen was greatly distended, and the vital powers were fast becoming exhausted. On the following morning I found on my visit that the woman had expired at 10:00 o'clock of the previous night.
SHAKESPEARE speaks of MACBETH as having been torn from his mother's womb by a wild boar, but probably the statement must be charged to poetic license. I believe the case I have above reported to be the only authentic case of Caesarian section performed by a beast on record. It may be interesting to know that the child suffered little or nothing from the violent and unusual method of delivery, and is alive to-day, a vigorous and thriving boy.
[Arabic medical literature in the nineteenth century]
