The management and treatment of the late toxemias of pregnancy

Abstract

B Y “toxemia of pregnancy” is understood a disturbance occurring during or in connection with pregnancy, consisting of a variety of syndromes, the most constant factors of which are hypertension, proteinuria, and edema. To these may be added a variety of renal, gastrointestinal and nervous symptoms, the most important of the last being convulsions and coma. The disease is most protean in its clinical manifestations. Yet there is no general agreement as to whether there is, in the words of Goodall, “one toxemia of pregnancy,” the multiform manifestations depending on one as yet undetermined specific cause, as typhoid fever and syphilis in all their varying clinical pictures depend on their respei or whether, as Dieckmann and many others believe, a number of different causes may operate in the pregnant woman, to give rise to a more or less similar group of manifestations. In an attempt to standardize present concepts of pathologic and symptomatic variations into an admittedly imperfect but at least widely acceptable and workable system of nomenclature, the American Committee on Maternal Welfare adopted the now familiar system of nomenclature which is currently in more or less general use.