ECLAMPSIA.
Eclampsia may declare itself during pregnancy, labor or the puerperal state. Authorities have been accustomed to describe it in the portion of their works which treats of Dystocia. We believe it more rational to ar range it among the diseases of pregnancy, on account of the intimate re lations which exist between albuminuria and eclampsia. As we have said, if all albuminuric women are not eclamptic, all eclamptic women, with few exceptions, are albuminuric, and eclampsia is only one of the manifes tations of albuminuria in women during pregnancy, labor or the puer peral state. We think that it is of advantage not to separate in our study these two diseases, of which one is the immediate consequence of the other.
Eclampsia by itself does not impede labor, and if it is classified by authors with dystocia, it is not as an obstacle to delivery; it is an acci dent that endangers the life of mother and child. Although eclampsia is more alarming, generally, after confinement, the risk which the mother and child incur during pregnancy are none the less serious, and it ought, as Cazeaux says, on account of the seriousness and nature of the convulsions, to be placed at the head of the diseases of pregnant women. It is one of the most alarming complication.s of albumin aria gravidarum, and as such it should be studied immediately after albuminuria.
the name of puerperal convulsions, acute epilepsy, renal spasm, renal epilepsy, unemic convulsions, acute cerebral ummia, cerebral urtemia, cerebral albuminuria, epileptic dystocia, convulsive dystocia, eclampsia is described as an acute disease coming on during preg nancy, labor or the puerperal state, and characterized by a series of tonic and clonic convulsions, affecting at first the voluntary muscles, and finally extending to the involuntary muscles, accompanied by a complete loss of consciousness, and ending by a period of coma or sleep, which may result in cure or death.
all authorities agree in regarding eelampsia as a rela tively rare accident, it is difficult, according to their statistics, to establish an approximate estimate even, because the frequency of eclampsia appears to vary, not only from the statistics of certain authors, but also even in different countries, and in different years. Moreover, if eclampsia ap
pears more often in hospital than in private practice, it is because the cases are collected from different parts of the town, and brought to the hospital, which necessarily increases hospital statistics. Here are the fig ures resulting from the practice in different countries: or about 1 case in 354 confinements. Peter has proved that the cases of eclampsia are becoming more and more frequent; indeed, taking the fig ures given by Depaul in his clinic, and which represent all the cases ob served in the hospital from 1834 to 1871, and dividing them into periods of ten years, Peter has arrived at the following result: He thinks this result is due to the fact, that the habit of bleeding preg nant women who suffer from this complication has been abandoned. Ac cording to certain authors, finally, eclampsia becomes more and more frequent as we approach the equator. Barquissau quotes in connection with this, the personal observations of de Mahy, who has stated that at Bourbon eclampsia is frequently observed, and that it occurs more often in the higher classes and among the negroes than in the middle classes. Eclampsia, as we have seen, may appear at any time during pregnancy, labor or the puerperal state; but if authorities agree that it occurs by far most frequently at the moment of labor, they are not of the same opin ion concerning its frequency during pregnancy and the puerperal state. Thus, while the majority of authors arrange the order of frequency as follows: Labor, puerperal state, pregnancy; Bailly proposes to substitute the following order: Pregnancy, labor, puerperal state. Our own opin ion would lead us to arrange the order of frequency as follows: Labor, pregnancy, puerperal state.