A seven-year review of eclampsia with special reference to treatment with veratrum viride

UTHSC Affiliation

College of Medicine

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1949

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine

Volume

72

Issue

3

Abstract

During the past fifty years innumerable methods of treatment for eclampsia have been advanced. Some of these have held their place in the armamentarium but many have fallen by the wayside. It is one from the latter group that, it seems, should still have a definite place in the therapeutic role, namely, Veratrum viride. It is true that this was not discarded by all and that many general practitioners in the South and even some of the Medical Centers continued to use this routinely. I refer particularly to the Department of Obstetrics at the University of Cincinnati. In the October 1940, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Flemming and Dr. Bryant, of the Department of Obstetrics at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, reported a study of 120 cases on which Veratrum viride had been used with only 1.6 mortality, and even those included in the mortality group, on further investigation, could hardly be included in the group of failures. It was from this report that further interest was aroused for this particular method of treatment. Soon after joining the resident staff of Obstetrics at the John Gaston Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, in July 1941, permission was obtained from Dr. W. T. Pride, Chief of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Tennessee School of Medicine, to begin the use of this drug in the treatment of eclampsia where a number of such patients are encountered each year. We used very much the same method as that outlined by Dr. Flemming and Dr. Bryant except for minor modifications at times which will be mentioned later in this report. After using Veratrum viride for approximately one year with uniformly good results, it was suggested by Dr. J. R. Rheinberger, Associate Professor of Obstetrics, that we make a seven-year study of treatment of eclampsia as followed in our hospital, using for a comparative study the last year, during which time Veratrum viride had been used. This was done and our report deals with the years 1936 to 1942 inclusive. During these seven years 150 cases were diagnosed as eclampsia of pregnancy. © 1945.

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