CŒLIOTOMY (ABDOMINAL SECTION) FOR RUPTURE OF THE PARTURIENT UTERUS.Read by Title in the Section of Surgery and Anatomy, at the Forty-second Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association, held at Washington, D. C., May, 1891.

Abstract

Introduction. —Although the literature of this subject is quite exhaustive, most authors deal with the etiology and pathology of rupture of the uterus, rather than with the treatment, and much of the teaching with regard to the latter antedates the era of modern abdominal surgery. The writer feels some hesitation in writing upon this theme, as it has been already ably presented to the American Medical Association by Dr. Wm. H. Walker and Dr. C. A. R. Reed, in papers read before the Obstetric Section. The writer's purpose in reintroducing the subject before the Surgical Section is to have it discussed from the broad standpoint of general surgery. This is entirely proper, since rupture of the uterus is to be considered in the same light as rupture or other lesions of any other of the abdominal viscera. It is preeminently a surgical emergency , and should not be studied from its gynecological