Vol 7, No 8 (1893)

The proposed obstetric report, according to the peculiar conditions of rural zemstvo medical practice, does not differ in particular accuracy and completeness of observations; in most cases, in villages and small towns (like the one where I live now), a doctor is invited only in difficult and advanced cases of childbirth or miscarriage, so very often, for example, there is no time for accurate measurements of the pelvis and other more detailed inquiries of the woman in labor; to all this must be added a mass of other, very varied medical work with a zemstvo doctor.

In the treatment of prolapse of the uterus and vagina, almost exclusive attention has been and is being paid to methods of keeping prolapsed organs in their normal position and to methods of preventing or limiting the size of such prolapse; the question of the techniques that are used in the adjustment of the falling out parts is either bypassed in silence or touched on in passing, without a desire to attach any importance to it. This is to some extent understandable if we remember that the vast majority of cases of prolapse of the genitals proceed without complications that complicate reduction, and in such cases the reduction mechanism is so simple that it is equally accessible to both the doctor and the patient herself.