Eclampsia and the weather

526

THE

aZ0enh0l%t:

Bclampsia p. 113.

xlviii,

AMERICAN

JOURNAL and

tlae

OF Weather.

OBSTETRICS

AXD

Zentralblatt

CYNECOI,OGY fiir

CynDkoiogie,

1924,

The effect of the weather on incidence of eciampsia has often been suggested, usually without statistics in relation to metterologieal records-for example, the diminution of the excretion by the skin in moist. weather, the damage to the kidneys from coId. Linzenmeier has suggested that autumn and spring days, oold and damp with northwest wind; and ,summer temperature with very moist atmosphere were associated with eelamptic attacks. Hoenhorst finds in Kiel a somewhat greater ineiderme in the spring months, with unsettled weather, but very little difference in the other three seasons. Ta.bles are given with atmospheric pressure, temperature, relative saturation of the atmosphere, clouds, mindq rain, su.ow, etc., in relation to various clinical cases and show definite relation bestmeen the character of the weather on the one hand and the frequency of eclampsia on the other. Naturally, the weather is seen not as a causal factor in the toxemia, but solely ass a da&or in the onset of the convulsion. LITTLE. Qttenberg: 1923,

The lxx.xi,

Etiology 295.

of Eclampsia.

Journal

American

Medical

Association,

Ottenberg dis~cusses McQuasrie 7s contribution dealing with tho incompatibility of Then author was mother’s and infant’s bloods as a causative factor in eclsmpsia. w,orking on the. same problem in 1911, when he came atro=s Dienst’s work which was along the same lines, a,nd this caused him to abandon his publication at that time. Ottenberg still supports the’ Dienst theory, that eelampsia is a transfusion of inearn. natible blood of the child i,nto the mother’s eirc,ulation as a result of communication between t;he two. Although it has been abandoned by Dienst, Ottenberg offers several suggestions to further support the above the’ory, and several problems to be solved by experimental theory. W. KEPTTIN. Frey,

F.:

sehrift,

Eclampsia 1924: liv,

and 134.

Hydatid

ZMale.

S c h weizerischo -

MLedizinische

Wochen-

The author briefly reviews some of the common theories of causes of eelampsia and especially comments on the fact that the presentation of such a case as his definitely demonstrat,es that the theory wherein the fetus is primarily the cause cannot be accepted. He reviews the literature of hydatid mole showing eclamptie symptoms. The patient was a primipa.na, twenty-nin’e years old, apparently six months pregnant. From the fourth month onwards she was showing albumen in the8 urine together with severe hoa~chaches and ocular disturbances. She had some bloody discharge just before entrance to the hospitd and five convulsions. Despite a high t’emperature a transcervical ceaarean was done and the mass removed. Sine was put on the modified Stroganoff treatment and speedily cleared up as far as symptoms were concerned. 1n commenting on the case the author suggests that perhaps the real cause of ecIampsis is not the poison from waste produc’ts of the fetus or the inability of the placenta but perhaps is due to a disordered function and an inner secretion of the placenta i&elf. A. C. WILLIAMSON. oli : Contribution nab di Ostetricia

to the Wudy e Ginecologia,

Fifteen placentas from eelamp’tic findings compared with those from albuminuria but without eonvulsionq showed no characteristic macroscopic

of Gbanges in the 1923, xiv, 327,

Placenta

in

~~lam~s~a.

dn.

patiants -sew studie& by the author, and the the pla.centas of 10 normal cases, 5 cases with and 5 syphilitic cases. The eclamptic placentas alterations to distinguish them as a group from