Mercurochrome to secure vaginal antisepsis during labor: A report of six thousand cases

Abstract

The present mercurochrome technic at the Methodist Episcopal Hospital of Brooklyn, N. Y., was established Jan. 1, 1928, and since that time 11,564 patients have been delivered with a gross morbidity of 7.2 per cent and with 35 maternal deaths. Four hundred eight of these were cesarean sections, with a morbidity of 53 per cent and 11 deaths. There were 11.157 vaginal deliveries with a morbidity of 5.5 per cent, a corrected morbidity of 2.7 per cent, with 24 maternal deaths, in 11 of which cases the child was viable. During the experimental stages 5.253 patients were delivered, making a grand total of 16,817.If we omit the cesarean sections, the following may be gleaned from the tables:1. The ward morbidity was 6.2 per cent with 5 maternal deaths while among the private patients the morbidity was 4.5 per cent with 2 maternal deaths.2. There was 2.2 per cent more morbidity among the primiparas than the multiparas, but 6 times as many deaths among the multiparas.3. The morbidity of the operative cases was 1.6 per cent more than the spontaneous. If we consider only the viable vaginal deliveries, there was one death in 1,700 among the spontaneous while with the operative there was one in 1,300.4. In the last 6,000 cases only one patient in 1,000 had a morbidity lasting twenty days. Of the six with a prolonged morbidity only three were given an instillation during labor, one of which had a breast abscess, one a pyelitis, and the other a temperature before delivery.5. Lochiametra was given as the cause of morbidity in 60 cases and sapremia accounted for 34. In the causes of morbidity not due to delivery, respiratory conditions accounted for 24, mastitis 66, and pyelitis 68.6. There have been 13,525 deliveries since the establishment of the present technic with 39 deaths, six or 15 per cent were due to puerperal sepsis, while there were only 14 deaths in 13,063 viable vaginal deliveries and only one of these was attributed to puerperal sepsis.