SLIDE 1
Pregnancy, Chidlbirth, Puerpurum 7/24/2010 Fernando Vega, MD 1
Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Puerpurium p
Fernando Vega, MD
History:
- First century a Greek text on Obstetrics
- 1513
- 1595 ‐
- 1668 Midwifery Text
- New Orleans first to license midwives in1772
- Obstetrical Forcepts
- Used in 11th and 12th Centuries to extract
dead fetuses h b l il d h
- Chamberlen Family passed on the secret
for three generations over 100 years.
Puerperal Fever
- Mercurialsi (1530‐1606) named it “Milk
Fever”
- Lying‐In Hospitals – epidemics of 1 out of
every five patients
- 1795
Alexander Gordon noticed it occurred
- 1795 – Alexander Gordon noticed it occurred
with patients who had practitioners who previously attended other patients with Puerperal fever
- 1843 – Oliver Wendell Holmes(34yo) wrote about
- thers’ observations and was attacked by
colleauges
Puerperal Fever
- 1854 – Meig’s advocated copious blood
letting as treatment
- 1846 – Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis, in
charge of a division of a lying in hospital charge of a division of a lying‐in hospital
- bserved that puerperal fever was negligible
in women who delivered before arriving at his
- wing. His friend had later died from a knife
scratch with changes in his body similar to that of those that died with puerperal fever
Puerperal Fever
- May 15, 1847 Semmelweis made all his staff
and medical students wash their hands. The mortality rate plummeted to 3%. He was not given a reappointment Died 1865 mentally given a reappointment. Died 1865, mentally disturbed, emotionally unstable.
- 1897 Lous Pasteur identified the hemolytic