OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Lindsay Journal #4, PART 3 *************************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. *************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Helen Silvey Helen_Silvey@macnexus.org http://jpaul.gwdi.com/silvey/ January 19, 1999 *************************************************************************** Continued June 30, 1840. was called to see Mrs. Meyrs. in the Neighborhood of (New) Paris O. This was a case of Twins and my friend Dr. (David) Cox was in attendence previous to my being sent for Dr. C. had delivered her of the first child, which was living & healthy, this was a foot presentation. but was not attended by any difficulty. On waiting some little time the other child presented an arm. and his efforts to return the hand was unsuccessfull. On arriving there the arm wa still presenting to the very shoulder. And forming my judgment or Prognosis by my former experience I had but little expectation of succeeding better than my friend Dr. C. in reducing the arm. however much to my Satisfacton & that of all present, in about an hour I succeeded in returning the hand and bringing down a foot & in a few minutes more in finishing the delivery. This is the 4th. Arm presentation that I have seen all of which have been detailed in the previous Nos. of this series. The bad success in these 3 previous cases had given me but little confidence of changing the presentation as above s(t)ated. And my success in this case was owing much in my opinion to the dilatation of the uterus & vargina attendant on the delivery of the first Twin child. This 2d. child was dead born and must from the swolen state of the presenting hand and arm & absense of motion, been dead sometime previous to my arrival. from the force that I had occasion to use. I feel confident the means made use of could not have occasioned the death of the child. On the 4 Inst. I saw Dr. Cox from whom I learned that Mrs. Meyers was doing well, & had every prospect of soon being up. Richmond Ia. July 7, 1840 W. Lindsay was called on yesterday (July 6th. 1940) to see Mr. Mathew Cochrane laboring under a dislocated shoulder the Dislocation was downwards & forwards. having made 2 unsuccessfull attenpts, on the 3d. one succeeded in reducing the Luxation. In this last attempt succeeded by confining him to a poast with a sheet his back to the post. placing one man to study (steady) him & make counter extensions which 2 strong men made extension at the Elbow & forearm, while with a ball of yarn in the acilla I directed the head of the humerus within the socket. This I believe Constitutes the 3d. case of this dislocation I have seen, the first while I was a student. The first in my own prace was Smith the Carriagemaker some 4 or 5 years ago whoch case is probably recorded in the previous no. of this series. As it regards placing the patient, I am now much in favor of securing the patient, with his back to a poast. as it favors the distention with more certainty than trusting to counter extension in the usual way by placing an individual at the back merely. July 7th 1840 June 21st. 1840 was called to see Joseph Cochrane laboring under compound comminuted fracture of the tibea & Fibula about midway between the ancle & knee. It is said by those present at the time that the Leg (right one) broken at the fracture formed about a right angle laterally outwarads being occasioned by a horse falling with C. on his back & precipitating his leg under the fore legs of the horse in some way. The part of the leg torn is the inside of the Leg. at the first dressing it was evident that there were some fractured & entirely detached spicula of bone within the fractured part & integumets. & since, within the leg of his Pants; also which was removed on a subsequent dressing. a piece of bone found within the Leg. In this case I dressed as I usually do with the stay case of corset splints. with a large piece of pasteboard on either side extending from the knee to the bottom of the heel & foot. all neatly confined with bandage and the Leg thus dressed placed within the box. Lst. dressing after seting on the 22d. blood still discharging out of the ruptured integuments- 24. The leg was not been much painful. Salts taken a few days ago operated well. appetitie good -- I forgot to mention that on my last visit next day I bled about 16 oz. The Leg looks favoable tho' rather with the flesch & integuments a little distended with a collection of a bloody serous fluid but no fever, and the appetite good. July 1st. a considerable quanity of dark bloody & dirty fluid discharge from the wound on removing the dressings & some slight symptoms of gangrene to day applyed a poultice of bread & milk. appetite good. July 5th. The black dirty discharge nearly ceased the wound looks better bowels regular & appetite good. A few days after the 5th. July young Cocharane was removed to his Father's in the western part of the county. and did not require any more special professional attentions. I have seen him twice since, and it affords me pleasure to say that his leg has done well, will have one without any deformity. And it has not been much protracted in its cure beyond the usual time of simple fracture. Oct. 21st. 1840 W. Lindsay Case of R. A. Lindsay It now falls to the fortune of the surviving husband to record the Death and last illness of his dear Decd. wife & consort. On Saturday night Sept. 26th. 1840, my companion was taken in the night after retiring to bed with a severe chill, which lasted a considerable time. accompanied with a severe pain in the head. after the chill passed off the pain in the head continuing excruciating, I took about 12 oz of blood from the arm. this did not much abate the pain in the head. & some hours subsequently placed a ligature on the arm and drew a few oz. more blood from the same orifice. bathed the feet in warm water. and having drank some warm Penyroyal Tea she broke out into a general moisture. & the pain in the head became less violent and seemed to be considerably relieved generally. during a period of about 2 hours previous to bathing the feet. during which time her misery was so very severe, she was at times quite wandering and redcollected. but the countenance was deathly pale. deeply anxious, and indeed her sufferings seemed to be beyond description until after she became moist, from bathing her feet, & drinking the warm tea. This was early on Sunday moring. On breaking out into the moisture and her head becoming somewhat releived, she began to complain of pain in the small of the back. during the day she lay tolerably quiet and seemed to be the greater part of the time between a sleep & a kind of stupor. Sunday night she rested tolerably well. On Monday after the operation of cathartic medicine, she seemed to be much better than on the day previous. And onTuesday night after taking a Dover's Powder at bed time rested well. And for the most part seemed to be gradually recovering during the balance of the week. On Friday and Saturday she had so far recovered that she was able to sit up a little & walked without assistence into the front room and at another time into the Kitchen. On Saturday night, (she having taken an anodyne (Pulv. Dov.) {Dover's Powder} on the 3 previous nights in consequence of rather a nervous restlessness & continuing to be somewhat griped from the operation of the cathartic, & as I thought in part from the effects of 2 or 3 doses of the Elixer vitriol which she had taken in pursuence of his on precription,) I thought proper to omit the anodyne, and she spent rather a restless night of it. however, on Sunday morning appeared to be still on the mend. And her appetite seemed to be coming up. But in the act of drinking a warm cup of coffe at breakfast, which our Daugter Mary Jane waited on her mother with, at the bed side, she was suddenly taken with uterine Hemorrhage, which in her then debilitated situation prostrated her & seemed to threaten almost instant dissolution. In this situation I administered a dose of the Acetate of Lead with Dover's powder and although it was soon rejected by the stomach it seemed to have acted promply in checking the flooding. as it soon subsided, but again recurring in the afternoon I gave her a portion of the Secale Cornutum (the Ergot) in the form of a decoction. This as well as every thing else I think was soon rejected by emesis. but the hemorrhage almost instantaneously ceased. During the whole of this day after the attack of hemorrhage she remained in a very debelitated & prostrated situation, scarcely able to whisper, or move a finger, during her frequent attacks of hemorrhage which she had had during a period of many years. She had never been so completely prostrated, and so continued to be during a period of 40 hours. And during this time her feet & legs were cold to the Knees, notwithstanding every exertion to keep them warm, On Monday night reaction came on in the form of a high paroxysm of fever, & lasted nearly all night. Attended by great thirst. and general restlesness, however during the period of her previous sinking she was quite restless & although she was so very weak as not be able to help herself or scarcely raise a hand, she continued to throw her feet about. During this period of extreme prostration her pulse was small & frequent. But when the reaction & Fever came on the pulse came full strong and bounding, and still more increased in frequency. As the Proxysm of Fever subsided, on Tuesday she appeared better, and evidently had gained strength so as to help herself a little. was again able to converse a little. The Stomach which had been so very irritable during Sunday & Sunday night, and during the greater part of Monday, by Tuesday noon had become so much restored to its natural functions as to receive a little nourishment. And at times she was quite cheerful; and so continued, as we fondly hoped, to be rather better up to Wednesday night, when after a period of 40 hours or a little upward a second paroxysm of Fever came on which if posable was more violent than the former one. The thirst was very great indeed. The pulse as before, or during the previous paroxysm, & the whole surface so hot that it was quite unpleasent to touch her with the hand. The next morning (Wednesday) the fever had nearly subsided, tho' the surface sill continued rather hot, thirst also rather more than natural. And a restlessness which not very considerable, was such as to create some uneasiness that she was not so well as on the previous morning(,Thuesday) Such had been her prostration since Sunday morning that I had moved them entirely by means of enemata. and another sympton or attendent I would here mention, since Sunday she had been unable to urinate, excepting once, & I had releived her as often as it appeared to be necessary by means of the catheter. On this morning she seemed more anxious than she had before been to have her bowels moved by the syringe. And immediately after Breakfast I sent for Mrs. Siddall, with whose assistence I laid her out on a low Trunnel bed, for the purpose of having her bed made up. & while here administered the Syringe, in a few minutes she appeared to be in a quiet sweet sleep still remaining on her side, this was probably about 9 oclock in the morning & as she had passed the previous night without sleep & so very restless. I felt glad that she now seemed to rest so easy. however I had been revolving the matter some time in my mind whether she was not sleeping too long. but I did not make up my mind to awake her, so she remained for a period of between two & three hours when suddenly she awoke very sick at the stomach, her mouth filled with fluid which she must have raised in consequence of the nausua, but was unable to vomit or spit it out. On being asked by me what sickened her, replyed that it was the dover's powder she had taken that morning. The fact was she had asked for a Dox. Pulv. in the latter part of the night but I had not thought it proper to give her one & she was incorrect in her then impression of having taken one. These were the last words she spoke From this time on she gradually sunk into an apparent stupor. by degrees the breathing became sterterous and more & more difficult until she expired at about a quarter of an hour of 2 oclock the next morning (Friday). Shortly after she sunk into this stupor, from which she never could be roused, I called in my friend Dr. (Joel) Vaile. By his advice mustard applications were made to the fore arms and 5 or 6 oz. of blood were drawn by the cupping glass from the Temples. but all with out any apparent advantage. Her days were numbered, her time had come, nature had failed. The silver cord was loosed. and she paid the debt of nature. She departed this life on the 9th. of October 1840. and had she lived to the 27th. of this month she would have been 49 (39) years of age, being born on the 27th. Oct. 1801. I would here remark that my wife was the mother of 9 living children at her death, and a son which died in child birth makes 10. This was her first born., & lies entombed at the burial ground of Dayton Ohio. I do not recollect the precise number, but from the best of my recollection she had during the 21 years of our living together as many abortions as she had of living chidren, all of which were, as is usually the case, attended by considerable uterine Hemorrhage. These misfortunes, had often brot her to the brink of the grave. and she had had 3 or 4 attacks of uterine Hemorrhage when not in a state of gestation, it had only been 6 or 7 weeks previous to her death that she had had an attack of Hemorrhage, & from the debility consequent thereon she had not yet recovered. A week or 10 days previous to her last illness she had her monthly visitations, which I understood her to say in her last weeks from the previous period, as the period just passed, according to her account of it, had been too sparing, when she was taken in her last ilness with such excruciating pain in the head, and after being bled, pain also in the small of the back. I was of the impression that she was laboring under suppression. And as it was not before mentioned, would here remark that during the first week of her illness in which she appeared to be recovering as before stated, she had a slight shew, of what I supposed to be of a catamenial character, which she informed me that she had been suspicious that she was in a state of gestation (family way) when she had gone beyond the usual period as above stated. And another symptom she mentioned in her last ilness for the first time to me. about a week or 10 days previous to her last ilness, one night when I was absent, she had a sudden discharge, as she supposed, from the uterus, amounting in quantity to nearly half a chamber(pot) full. And as she express to me supposed, as she had a rather bloated appearence, that it was some thing of the nature of Dropsy of the uterus. I am at a loss to make up a clear opinion of her case, It is among the posable things that there was an adventitious membrane formed containing this flud. and another matter which still throws mystery around her case with me was the discharge of a substance, in her dying hours, in size & form about that of a goose egg. Mrs. Siddall gave me this information since her Decease. I knew nothing of it at the time and the women in attendence did not know of it until in the act of laying her out. On reviewing her case I have been unable to satisfy myself. whether if it were posable to meet with just such another, I could pursue a more judicious treatment. In the first instance, as already expressed, I treated her case as one of suppression. & after the uterine Hemorrhage took place, then treated it as a case of Hemorrhage. I should be better satisfyed with myself if I had made an examintion of the uterus during her ilness. but taking the view of her case which I did, such examination did not to me then see necessary. As it is a matter quite uncertain what was the character of the substace which passed off per vaginum all I can offer is conjecture. I have no means now of ascertainng whether it was an organised morbid, or pathological substance, or that it was merely coagula. I would here mention another symptom, attendant on her case, but I am at a loss to give it any specific origin or cause. it was there during the monday afternoon. Night, & once next morning. She had something like a spasm, or fit, the first was a slight jerking or twitching of the arm & oposite Leg, and attended by a slight distortion of the countenance, the last spasm was on Tuesday morning and was most severe of any that she had had. The Injection which was administered on the morning on which she sunk into the stupor produced several involuntarily dejections, I feared at the time the runing off existed that it was too drastic. It was composed of about 8 oz water 2 Teaspoonsfull Muriate Soda (Table Salt) & about 2 Tea Spoonsfull of Lard. The bowels I am inclined to think had become coliquative, as the discharge was considerably putrescent in its character. and had her strength been able to bear up under it, from the morbid character of the evacuation, perhaps the catharsis might have been of an advantage, but being watery in their character, I feel sorry that such was the result. Knowing that her bowels were generaly very soluble & quite easily acted on by medicine, & had often sunk down considerably under an active catharsis in former cases of indisposition, I had, during her present ilness, been very careful not to excite or move her bowels much. and in preparing injections had in every instance, until this morning, made use of the starch emulsion, tho' on the previous day had added a little Lard & Salt. perhaps about 1/2 or 2/3 the quantity of this morning. & the result had been merely a single motion. On this morning I had concluded on the propriety of using the tepid water instead of the starch emulsion making it more stimulating than formerly, believing the severe paroxysm of fever under which she had suffered so much the night previous might have been in part induced by the morbid secretions accumulated in the alimentary canal. Continued Helen, Sacramento _*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*