Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1914-11-23

| AS TO details: OF the 15O cases 1s1 we're
! spontaneous deliveries and 10 were arti-
hcialy terminated. The drug seemed to
shorten the duration OF labor in the first
stage" but prolonged It notably In the second
stage, since the patient being in semi
conscious state, could not be taught to
use the muscles to advantage. Usually, II
is not until after the third injection that
the patient loses her memory. She can
still answer questions, but the memory
seems obliterated. This drowsy painless
state lasts until the birth Of the child. Then
the mother falls into quiet and natural
sleep, lasting on the average, three hours.
And she "awakens rested and cheerful, free
from any shock sign Of exhaustion no
matter how long the labor has lasted In
deed, often the patient woke and asked
How soon will it be over2" 1t was hard
to convince her she had already borne her
child. They had to show her the baby.
And the effect on the child?
Take once more the $50 cases. As two
of the births were twins. 152 children were
born And not one was still born-that is,
failed OF resuscitation. Three of the children
died short time after brth-only three,
which compares more than favorably with
the ordinary child mortality. One hundred
and twenty of the children cried out inn
medlately; in 20 there was an average delay
of five minutes; and in only one case
where It had been necessary to give the
mother repeated injections of the drug
was II necessary to resort to artificial res
piraton For a week this child was feeble
and drowsy; but It made good recovery
To Reduce Number of Failures
The results may be summarized thus: In
analgesa-that is, an unconscious and pain
less state Everything that happened was
blotted out of the mothers mind She had
no memory of birth or paint was serene
mother-sleep In 1S cases there was pain
lessness, but not Inconsistencies. In 10
cases the physicians failed to obtain
any marked results. And it is possible,
Doctor Heller believes, to reduce the num-
Der of failures to smaller figure, though
there may always be cases where it would
be unsafe to administer the drug in quanti-
ties that would insure a painless birth
There remains 30 per cent. of cases in which
the hideous and meaningless birth pangs
may be stilled or banished quite.
You can foresee the family swarming |
consequences-when natures fierce check |
Of pain is taken off the birth of humanity !
1t is not for me (unbloused layman that I |
aml) to point them out. They open like
roads--these formidable conse-
you may send your imagina-
ton down any road you please. To densely
world, If you WILL or TO that
quiet room where mother-love wakes from
a happy sleep and kisses a little, drowsy,
newborn mouth; you please.
But what seems plain is this
Clearly, dogmatically, science vouches for
the Twilight Sleep" Doctor Heller afirms
It's potency and its harmlessness in 30
cases out of 100 it's complete success. EHi-
,acious and safe. have not touched upon
he technique of the method, nor the de-
als which would carry conviction to a
scientific mind. What seemed important
vas to state the fact that-in New York
'areful experiments have substantiated
,Very claim made for the ''Dammerschlaf'
IF Freiburg. And IL 1t be not perfect (if
10 women out Of every 100 are left outside
his sleepy paradlse) there ig no reason to
believe it may not be perfected.